After government push, Madhya Pradesh adds 1,478 Covid ‘backlog’ deaths to tally

Madhya Pradesh on Monday added 1,478 ‘backlog deaths’ from the second wave of the pandemic till June 30 to its existing record taking the Covid-19 death toll to 10,506 from 9,027 deaths reported in the state until Sunday.

The additional deaths came to the fore after the government on June 26 issued a letter to all district authorities urging them to report any deaths till June 30 which were not added so far on the government’s ‘Sarthak’ portal. The exercise was started after Chhavi Bharadwaj, Mission director of National Health Mission, issued an order.

During the second wave of Covid-19, all the positive cases, total deaths and recovery rates are uploaded on Sarthak through Form 3A by district administration. However, according to senior government officials, the deaths which mostly took place in private hospitals or of those patients under home isolation were left out from the Sarthak portal. It was these deaths that were identified following the letter of June 26.

The issue of the left out deaths that were added to the state’s tally was also discussed in a review meeting held by Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday. Madhya Pradesh has been facing allegations of under-reporting Covid-19 deaths. The Indian Express had reported in April that the official death toll in Bhopal alone was 109 while the three Covid-19 designated crematoriums and one graveyard had carried out over 2,500 cremations — far outnumbering the state’s tally for the month of April.