Mint Explainer: The official ‘data fog’ on India’s covid toll has finally cleared up. Here’s what we know now.
Summary
A new dataset released by the Centre gives us an official hint of the true nature of the human toll of the second covid-19 wave. Here's why the data was long-awaited, and what it tells us about the extent of undercounting of covid-related deaths in India.
New government data released after an unusual delay has finally given official estimates that could help paint the most definitive picture that was ever possible of the likely human toll of the covid-19 second wave in 2021. That year, nearly 2.1 million more Indians died than was expected based on past trends, show Mint calculations from the demographic survey Sample Registration System (SRS), whose report the government published on 7 May.
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Between 2018 and 2020, around 8.1 million Indians are estimated to have lost their lives annually. But in 2021, this figure reached 10.2 million. The difference is called ‘excess deaths’, a crucial metric that becomes relevant in times of large-scale unexpected loss of life. Of course, not all these deaths can be attributed to covid-19, but this is the best possible number one can get. Remember that the pandemic sent the healthcare system into chaos, making counting difficult, and critics also alleged deliberate underreporting by authorities.
How does this compare with India’s official toll?
India’s health ministry, using data from various state governments, attributed 333,333 deaths to covid-19 in 2021. The number of excess deaths that’s evident now is 6.4 times higher. The ratio can be a measure of the extent of undercounting—whether deliberate or unintentional. As of 5 May 2025, the official toll since the beginning of the pandemic is 533,665.
Among large states, the ratio is the worst for Gujarat (35 times), Madhya Pradesh (20 times), Bihar (14 times), Rajasthan (14 times), West Bengal (14 times), Jharkhand (13 times), and Andhra Pradesh (11 times).
The chart shows the number of excess deaths in major states and how much higher they were, as compared to the actual deaths.
Why did it take so long to get these numbers?
We don’t know. The World Health Organisation released its own excess death estimates in 2022, as did several other private agencies and researchers. The Centre had junked all of them, casting aspersions on their intent and methods. They all had estimated tolls several times higher than the official count.
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This is why the government’s own SRS data has been awaited all this time to close the gap in an official manner. Usually, the report is released within 24 months of the end of a calendar year. But the 2021 data has been released only now, three years after the 2020 data came out.
What are excess deaths?
Governments will naturally fail to capture the true toll of a pandemic like covid-19: Not all patients are tested, and defining a “covid death" is complicated. This left the “excess deaths" approach the best-placed method to estimate the toll.
"Excess deaths" is the difference between the number of deaths in an unusual period (such as 2020 and 2021) and the number of deaths in a normal year. This can give a sense of the direct and indirect toll of a pandemic like covid-19. In the calculations in this article, we have used the 2018-2020 average as the ‘normal’.
What is the SRS?
Before that, look at the Civil Registration System (CRS). In India, this is the report that gives the number of deaths registered in a given year. Mark the word ‘registered’: it’s not sufficient, since it misses the deaths that weren’t registered.
That’s why the government conducts an additional sample survey, whose results are reported through the SRS. Every year, it uses a nationally representative sample of households to estimate death rates, among other statistics. Using this and the year’s population projection, one can estimate actual deaths—registered and unregistered.
But how was 2020 a normal year? What did the SRS report of 2020 show?
The 2020 SRS, which was released in May 2022, soon after the release of the WHO’s estimates, gave a death rate of 6.0 per 1,000 population. This meant around 8.1 million deaths, which was actually down from 2019. On one hand, this was not totally unexpected, since fewer people left their homes during lockdowns and the first wave was much less deadly. On the other, this is a mysterious number, since this was nearly the same as the number of registered deaths in India that year, as per the CRS, meaning that as many as 99.9% of deaths in India got registered in 2020.
What about 2021, the year that saw a devastating second wave?
That’s where the data fog continued for three years, prompting private researchers to try to fill the gap with indirect estimates from other sources. But most were met with rejection by the government.
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The SRS report, now released, estimates that the death rate that year shot up to 7.5 per 1,000 people, from a range of 6-6.2 in 2018-2020. This translates to around 10.2 million deaths. The CRS (which, too, was released on 7 May), again reported nearly as many registered deaths, confirming that nearly all Indians are now getting deaths registered.
Another data source was released on 7 May: the "Medical Certification of Cause of Death" (MCCD) report. It attributed 413,580 deaths in 2021 to covid-19. But this, too, would only be a small share of the actual covid toll: the same report said only 23% of all deaths in India in 2021 were medically certified (i.e. made it to this report).
What’s next?
The covid-19 pandemic has been declared over, thanks to large-scale immunity both by vaccination and prior infection. But many Indian families were left reeling with the lasting impact due to the deaths of loved ones. The latest data gives us a better, official sense of how many Indians may have actually suffered. Hopefully, this will help policymaking in future healthcare crises.
