Maharashtra recovers Rs 1 crore from kin of Covid victims who filed duplicate claims

The disaster management department has identified 2,053 duplicate ex-gratia claims so far. An audit of such claims is ongoing and the number is likely to go up.

Till January 24, 198 beneficiaries, who were found to have filed duplicate applications, have returned Rs 99,00,000 to the government.

Kolhapur tops the list where 37 beneficiaries have returned Rs 18.5 lakh, followed by Mumbai (27 beneficiaries), Satara (17) and Wardha (15).

Last September, the department had asked all district Collectors to ensure the immediate recovery of the additional amount. The Collectors had then issued notices and warned of filing FIRs if the additional money was not returned. “However, many of the beneficiaries who received additional compensation by filing duplicate claims and were contacted after scrutiny are still hesitant to return the amount,” said an official from the department.

According to the official, the discrepancy occurred as the relatives of the deceased filed compensation claims from different districts, which were cleared by district disaster management authorities.

“Due to personal strife over the claims among the close living relatives of the deceased, kin often end up filing different applications. We have personally called them asking them to return the additional claims,” an official had earlier told The Indian Express.

Last year, a three-member team from the Centre visited Maharashtra to scrutinise the ex-gratia claims as per a Supreme Court (SC) directive. The SC had on March 24 last year permitted the Centre to conduct an inquiry into fake claims for ex-gratia meant for family members of those who have lost their lives to Covid, saying “nobody can be permitted to avail the compensation by making a false claim or submitting false certificate”.

Maharashtra provides compensation of Rs 50,000 each to the kin of Covid victims. Against the Maharashtra government’s official Covid death toll of 1.48 lakh, the number of applications approved for ex-gratia has reached 2.01 lakh.

The discrepancy between approved applications for ex-gratia and the state’s official toll is because of the SC’s expansion of the denotation of confirmation of Covid deaths.

Last year, the SC expanded the ambit of Covid-19 deaths in response to a petition filed by advocate Gaurav Bansal for compensation. The SC ruled that deaths occurring within 30 days from getting tested or clinically determined as Covid-19 shall be considered as a Covid-19 death even if the death happened outside a health facility. Along with this, in fact, the kin of victims of unnatural deaths like suicide who tested positive for Covid-19 posthumously will also be eligible for the ex-gratia, the SC had said.