UP govt pays ex-gratia to kin of over 2,000 staff who succumbed to Corona during panchayat polls
LUCKNOW: The Yogi Adityanath government has disbursed over Rs 600 crore as compensation to the families of nearly 2,000 employees who died of Covid-19 while on the Uttar Pradesh panchayat polls duty .
Citing the state government order dated August 26 transferring Rs 606 crore to the State Election Commission and ordering District Magistrates to transfer Rs 30 lakh each to the families of over 2000 state government employees who had succumbed to the Covid-19 during the poll duty.
“The District Magistrates (DMs) would transfer the money within a week through RTGS in bank accounts of the next-of-kin of the deceased employees,” the News18 report cited the UP govt order signed by Additional Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Singh.
The order was sent to the state election commission and all DMs. It listed the names of all 2128 state government employees who had died after being on panchayat polls duty — 2097 of them due to Covid-19 and 31 employees due to non-Covid-19 reasons.
Initially, the state govt said that a few employees had died due to Covid-19 during the poll duty, citing the State Election Commission report that death is counted only if it occurred during the time an employee left his house for duty and returned back. According to the order, the state government has expanded that criterion on “compassionate grounds” to consider 2128 deaths of employees for compensation.
