Rules amended to cover more govt staff under ex-gratia scheme

The UP govt has increased the poll duty period from one day to 30 days, which means if any staff died of Covid within 30 days of election duty, his family will be entitled to Rs 30 lakh ex-gratia MANOJ KUMAR SINGH, additional chief secretary, panchayati raj

LUCKNOW : Dependents of government personnel, who died of Covid infection within 30 days of their duty in the recent threetier panchayat elections in UP, will get financial assistance of Rs 30 lakh each as ex-gratia.

The decision came after the UP cabinet on Monday cleared a proposal seeking amendments to rules regarding compensation for employees at a meeting held here. The amended guidelines are expected to significantly increase the compensation coverage.

Two weeks ago, the government had made a provision for Rs 30 lakh compensation, but this covered the period of only one day — the day when the staff did election duty.

“Now, the government has increased the election duty period from one day to 30 days, which means if any staff died of Covid within 30 days of the election duty, his family will be entitled to Rs 30 lakh ex-gratia payment as compensation,” said Manoj Kumar Singh, additional chief secretary, panchayati raj.

Under the existing rules, only 74 personnel who died (40 due to Covid and 34 for other reasons) during the election qualified to be covered under the ex-gratia scheme.

“After the amended rules that take one month period as election duty, the coverage will increase significantly benefitting a large number of families of employees who succumbed to Covid,” another official said.

The government is expected to issue a GO detailing the procedure, guidelines etc on Tuesday.

Earlier, the teachers’ unions claimed that 1.621 teachers and other personnel, who were on poll duty, died of Covid. They also demanded a compensation of Rs 1 crore each to the families of the deceased and government job for their dependents.