‘Can’t Pay 4 Lakhs’, Centre’s U-turn On Covid-19 Compensation!

The government of India has taken a u-turn on its compensation to the kin of Covid-19 victims. A PIL seeking minimum standards of relief and ex-gratia payment to Covid-19 deceased has been filed in the Supreme Court of India and based on this, the apex court has asked the Centre’s response.

In its reply, the Centre made a clear cut statement in the form of an affidavit to the Supreme Court that compensation of Rs 4 lakh cannot be paid to victims of Covid-19. Citing huge financial liability, the Centre said, the disaster management law mandating compensation applies only to natural disasters like earthquake, floods etc.

That’s a shocker as earlier PM Modi himself assured that his government would be supporting families of Covid-19 victims. But there lacked clarity on the financial matters and now it is evident that there is no such thing.

The Centre’s affidavit added that the government of India and all the states have spent huge amounts to deal with Covid-19 and financial matters have stretched exceedingly.

India has reported 3.88 Lakh Covid-19 but the unofficial figures could be much higher.

Meanwhile India has reported 53,256 new Covid-19 cases which is 88 days low. 1422 people have died in the last 24 hours and about 28,00,36,898 people have received the vaccines.