During the second wave of Corona, the American newspaper New York Times reported that the Indian government was playing on the death toll. In reality, the government is hiding the actual number of people who died of COVID. During that time, when the opposition sought an answer from the government on the New York Times report, the Center said that the newspaper was reporting wrongly.
The picture that is emerging at the moment is bound to put a question mark on the government. According to WHO, India has reduced the number of deaths in its country. WHO is also assuming that more than 4 million deaths have been caused by COVID in India, while India reports only 5,23,889 deaths. Foreign media say that India is stalling in the task of making public the number of deaths due to Corona. WHO wanted to release these figures in January itself, but it could not happen due to India’s opposition. India says it does not agree with the counting process and methods. The government says that our basic objection is not with the results but with the way to reach them.
The Registrar General of India has said that the number of deaths in 2020 was 4,75,000 more than in 2019. Although the government was not in a mood to release these figures yet, but amidst a tussle over the death toll from the World Health Organization, the Indian government released the figures on Tuesday itself. According to the Registrar General, the total number of deaths in India in 2020 has already increased compared to the previous two years. Earlier the government had said that about 1 lakh 49 thousand people would die in 2020. But in the figures released on Tuesday, this number has increased more than three times.
However, some experts believe that the death toll from COVID in India is more than 40 lakhs. This is eight times more than the official figures of the Government of India. Last year in April and May, there was terrible devastation in India in the second corona wave caused by the delta variant. Then people were seen dying without oxygen and in agony on the streets outside hospitals. At the same time, the American newspaper reported on the number of deaths. After seeing his figures, there was a stir everywhere.
According to the news of the Indian Express, the work of counting births and deaths in India is done in two ways. In the first method, the work of recording the data is done through the Civil Registration System (CRS). In another way, the calculation is done through the Sample Registration System (SRS). In the first method, the birth and death figures are given. Whereas in the other way estimates are put forward. Looking at all the volatility, it is clear that CRS data is a subset of SRS.
If we look at the figures of the last few years, there is no doubt that the number of births and deaths has been increasing every year as compared to the last year. It is being seen by adding that the number of birth and death registrations has increased due to all the schemes of the government. Now people are more serious than before. This is the reason that in 2018 there was a jump of 7.53 percent in their registration. Whereas in 2019, 9.93 percent more deaths were registered than last year. In 2020, this figure had gone up to 6.21. A total of around 81 lakh deaths were recorded this year. After looking at these figures, it does not seem that the increase in the number of deaths in the registrar general’s figure was more surprising.
But still it is believed that whenever the SRS data comes out, it will tell the correct picture of the deaths due to corona. However, unlike CRS, SRS data also does not go into the bottom of the cause of death. But they still have a more elaborate method of collecting death statistics. There is no doubt that if the death toll in 2020 is more than last year, then the major reason for this could be Corona.