India Undercounted 20 Lakh Covid Deaths in 2021: Gujarat Worst, Kerala Among Most Accurate

New Delhi: India recorded nearly 20 lakh more deaths in 2021 than officially acknowledged as Covid-related, new government data shows—confirming large-scale underreporting during the deadliest phase of the pandemic. The Civil Registration System (CRS) data, released on Wednesday, reveals 25.8 lakh more deaths in 2021 compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
Even after accounting for natural population growth during that two-year period, the number of excess deaths in 2021 is estimated at around 20 lakh. This is nearly six times the officially reported 3.3 lakh Covid deaths for that year. These figures expose serious discrepancies in official narratives and raise questions about the transparency of death reporting during the country’s worst health crisis in decades.
The worst undercounting was seen in Gujarat, where the actual number of excess deaths was close to 2 lakh, while the official Covid death tally for 2021 was just over 5,800. This amounts to an underreporting ratio of over 33 times, the highest among all Indian states. The data clearly points to a significant gap between what was reported and what actually happened on the ground.
Other states were not far behind in concealing the scale of tragedy. In Madhya Pradesh, the government officially recorded about 6,900 Covid deaths in 2021, but the state saw an excess of 1.3 lakh deaths, making the real toll 18 times higher than reported. Similarly, West Bengal documented a little over 10,000 Covid deaths, yet excess deaths exceeded 1.5 lakh, marking a 15-fold undercount.
States like Bihar, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Andhra Pradesh also registered excess deaths more than 10 times the official Covid fatality figures. The data indicates that millions of pandemic deaths were either misclassified, left unreported, or attributed to other causes, either due to poor infrastructure, lack of testing, or intentional data suppression.
The gap between official numbers and actual deaths isn't just a matter of statistics—it represents millions of untold stories, unrecognized losses, and families who never received government support or acknowledgment. While not every excess death can be directly attributed to Covid, the timing and scale strongly suggest that the virus—and the overwhelming pressure it placed on India’s fragile health system—was the primary driver.
In contrast, a handful of states showed greater accuracy and transparency in reporting Covid deaths. Kerala, along with Uttarakhand, Assam, Maharashtra, and Delhi, showed the least discrepancy between official Covid fatalities and calculated excess deaths.
Adding further weight to the findings, a second government report released on the same day focused on medical certification of cause of deaths in 2021. It revealed that Covid-19 was the second leading cause of death, accounting for 17.3% of all medically certified deaths in the country. Only diseases of the circulatory system ranked higher, contributing to 29.8% of certified deaths.
What's more alarming is that only 23.4% of all registered deaths in 2021 were medically certified. Yet even within that limited dataset, the number of medically confirmed Covid deaths stood at 4.1 lakh—a figure higher than the officially reported national Covid death toll of 3.3 lakh for the entire year. This clearly indicates that many Covid deaths were either not certified correctly or left out of the official narrative entirely.