A man from Thane's Manpada, Chandrashekhar Desai, got a bizarre call from his municipal authority asking him to collect his own death certificate from their offices.
Immediately knowing this was an erroneous phone call, the 54-year-old reported it to the authorities.
Desai had tested positive for COVID-19 in August 2020, and had also recovered at his home. He even got a call from the authorities that time to enquire about his health.
Desai alleges that he got a call from a woman who claimed to be an employee of the Thane Municipal Coproration and had asked him to collect the death certificate.
“She told me that the TMC wanted to issue the death certificate of one Chandrashekhar Desai. When I told her that she was speaking to Chandrashekhar Desai she was surprised and asked if anyone else in the family had died or been infected to Covid,” said Desai to The Indian Express.
Desai faced some difficulties when he tried to report the issue by going to the COVID-19 ward room of the authority since nobody there would accept the mistake. “I asked them the reason but they were not accepting their mistake and were just trying to shrug their responsibility saying the name was in the list of ICMR but my question is how can the name crop up in the ICMR list if it is not sent by the Corporation. Now they have promised me that they will take necessary steps to correct the error,” Desai said.
TMC officials are now looking into the matter and suspect that this is a reporting error in the system.
(With inputs from The Indian Express).
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)