After the reconciliation of death cases led to a controversy, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal denied claims of civic body withholding data.
While talking to The Free Press Journal, BMC chief said, "On June 6, when I was going through the data, I saw one well-known private hospital has listed 17 deaths in a day. I was shocked discussed this with other officials. We found out there was just one death on that day, remaining deaths occurred between April and May 2020, but were reported on that day."
He said that the civic body immediately conducted further inquiry and came forth with the information to maintain transparency. "We decided to dig further. After carrying out a reconciliation exercise the total number of cases turned out to be 862. I informed the chief secretary and asked if we could put this in public domain. We decided to be transparent, when we could have kept it covered. We are not hiding anything, people must understand that," Chahal said.
Earlier, a massive data reconciliation exercise in Maharashtra found that at least 1,328 deaths of COVID-19 patients went unreported across the state. Of these 862 were from Mumbai alone.
"Based on information we received from various hospitals, 862 deaths are updated after reconciliation of all the deaths since March and has been added in progressive," BMC had said.
