Karnataka issued 78K 'excess' death certificates this year

These numbers come at a time when questions are being raised about the alleged under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in the state

The number of death certificates issued by the government in the first six months of 2021 has gone up by 78,000 when compared with figures for the corresponding period in 2018 and 2019, suggesting a surge in the number of deaths.

These numbers come at a time when questions are being raised about the alleged under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths in Karnataka.

According to the Civil Registration System (CRS), there were 3,37,580 death certificates issued across the state from January 1 to June 15, including 87,082 death certificates issued in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) jurisdiction. Thursday alone, 4,302 death certificates were issued statewide.

The number of death certificates issued in the first six months of 2018 and 2019, stood at 2.56 lakh 2.67 lakh, respectively. While 2018 saw an increase of 1.3 per cent compared to 2017 data, it was 4.2 per cent in 2019. The numbers for 2020 are not yet available but a mathematical projected increase of 5 per cent supposes that the state would have issued 2.75 to 2.8 lakh death certificates.

However, this year’s numbers shockingly work out to a 20 per cent rise over the presumed total 2.8 lakh death certificates issued over a six-month period the previous year.

Assistant Registrar of Births and Deaths M B Madhu Kumar, specified that to interpret each certificate as one individual death would be inaccurate. “Multiple copies of death certificates are sometimes taken by family members for matters of property and inheritance. In some cases, certificates are issued for deaths which have happened in previous years,” he said. A data analysis by DH showed that duplicate death certificates accounted for an average of 5.23 per cent of all certificates issued in previous years. Delayed registrations (any death over 21 days), accounted for about 32 per cent of all certificates in previous years.

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Sanjeev Mysore of the Project: Jeevan Raksha, a data project which conducts Covid-19 analysis, explained that had there been no pandemic, the number of death certificates issued during these six months should have been between 2.95 and 3 lakh. This is significantly lower than the 3.37 lakh certificates actually issued.

Based on the available data, including the official Covid-19 death toll of 20,521 between January 1 and June 15 , Mysore said that there could be a gap of between 15,000 and 20,000 deaths statewide which “needs to be reconciled”.

Officials declined to reveal the actual death toll in the state and the city. One BBMP official said that he is under instructions not to reveal facts or figures about the deaths which have happened so far.

Nevertheless, an officer tacitly admitted that the death toll up to June 15 in BBMP limits was more than the officially disclosed number of 425. “This is due to delayed reporting of fatalities from families who could not report deaths during the period of the lockdown,” the officer said, without providing numbers.

Based on insurance claim data, Project: Jeevan Raksha said it has analysed and submitted to the MoHFW indicating that Gujarat and Telangana have under-reported 15,000 to 20,000 Covid-19 deaths.

Mysore said that Maharashtra has voluntarily started to reconcile its death toll, disclosing some 10,000 back-dated deaths in June alone. “This indicates that there is a fair amount of undisclosed Covid-19 death toll,” he said.