Insurance-backed ex gratia for Covid victims likely: Govt

NEW DELHI: The Union government on Saturday informed the Supreme Court that the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) were considering a proposal on insurance-backed ex gratia for Covid victims, which was disrupted due to a sharp rise in Covid cases during the second wave of the pandemic.

The Centre, in its submissions, said, "ADB has also proposed a new Technical Assistance (TA) concept for promoting disaster risk transfer, including insurance in India. ADB through its TA is looking forward to developing disaster risk financing solutions for Indian states."

"In this regard, a meeting was also held on April 5 between ADB and NDMA. During the meeting, ADB proposed a hybrid insurance solution - combination of parametric insurance and indemnity insurance - and requested for a joint meeting between NDMA, Department of Financial Services (DFS) and the ministry of home affairs (MHA)," it said. The meeting was scheduled for April 12, but was postponed because of the severity of the second wave of the pandemic.

However, the Centre said it would be difficult for it to grant ex gratia from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) or for the states from SDRF as "ex gratia payment under SDRF/NDRF is available to persons who have died on account of 12 notified disasters and other local natural disasters which are notified by the state governments. However, Covid-19 has not been recommended by the XVth Finance Commission for financing of relief measures from State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF)/NDRMF, which includes ex gratia payment".