The Delhi government Thursday told the High Court that the families of those frontline workers who died while on ‘dedicated Covid duty’ were entitled to the Rs 1 crore ex-gratia relief announced by the state.

This the Govt. opposed the petitions filed by the families of Constable Amit Kumar, who was a fingerprint expert with the Crime Branch and ASI Shesh Mani Pandey, who died while performing field duty in Northwest District in addition to being a collator with the police department.

Earlier, the government had announced that Rs 1 crore would be paid to the families of those doctors, nurses, paramedical staff, security staff, sanitation staff or any other government officials including police personnel who were deployed for Covid duty by it and died of the disease while performing it.

Advocate Santosh Kumar Tripathi, the government standing counsel before Justice V Kameswar Rao submitted that the normal duties of the routine during the pandemic and ‘dedicated Covid duties’ were different. He referred to the deployment of personnel at hospitals, oxygen plants and crematoriums were ‘dedicated Covid duties’. He said that the hospitals were more dangerous than any open safe place. On-road or other open places anybody has options to take precautions but it was difficult to maintain that much precaution inside the hospital. The government counsel further submitted that every other person who died of Covid could not be given the ex-gratia payment of Rs 1 crore.

Source: The Indian Express