At least twelve Indian states and union territories under-reported Covid-19 deaths in 2022, according to official government data.
The findings emerged from two newly published reports by the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, suggesting that actual mortality linked to the virus was higher than officially acknowledged.
India recorded a total of 8.6 million deaths in 2022, marking a 15% drop from 2021—the deadliest year of the pandemic—and returning death levels closer to pre-Covid years. The death toll had spiked to 10.2 million in 2021, compared with 7.6 million in 2019 and 8.1 million in 2020.
The data, drawn from the Civil Registration System (CRS), indicates that 2022 was the least deadly year of the pandemic in India, largely due to vaccine rollouts and reduced severity of infections.
However, the reports suggest a mismatch between the number of deaths officially attributed to Covid-19 and the actual excess deaths—defined as the number of deaths above what would be expected at 2019 death rates.
This discrepancy points to potential undercounting of Covid-19 fatalities, particularly at the state and UT level.
The Medical Certification of Cause of Death (MCCD) report shows that in 12 states and UTs, only 6,076 deaths were officially recorded as Covid-related in 2022. However, the MCCD data attributes 12,818 deaths to Covid-19 in these jurisdictions.
This suggests that over half of the Covid deaths may not have been publicly acknowledged in official pandemic bulletins.
Nationwide, the MCCD captured 25,393 Covid-19 deaths in 2022—less than the 50,435 reported in official health bulletins. Experts note this is likely due to the MCCD covering only around 20% of all registered deaths, with the level of medical certification varying significantly by region.
In 2021, however, the MCCD recorded 413,580 Covid-19 deaths across the country, significantly higher than the 332,510 deaths reported in pandemic bulletins, reinforcing concerns about under-reporting.
While the death rate appears to have stabilised, other indicators suggest that the health system had not fully recovered. The proportion of deaths occurring without medical attention continued to rise, reaching 50.7% in 2022.
This was higher than 47.3% in 2021, 45% in 2020, and markedly above the 2019 figure of 34.5%.
In terms of mortality rate per population, India’s crude death rate (CDR) rose from 6.2 in 2019 to 7.5 in 2021, before declining in 2022.
Although the ORGI has not yet published the Sample Registration System (SRS) report for 2022, an estimate using population projections places the CDR at 6.3 in 2022—almost on par with pre-pandemic levels.
Typically, the SRS reports show slightly higher CDRs than the CRS figures due to the latter not capturing all deaths. In 2018 and 2019, the SRS CDR exceeded CRS estimates by 1.0 and 0.5 per thousand population, respectively.
That discrepancy diminished in 2020 and 2021, likely due to more comprehensive death registrations during the pandemic.
At the 2019 CDR of 6.2, India would have seen around 8.55 million deaths in 2022. The actual number registered was 8,649,930—nearly 95,500 more deaths than expected, indicating excess mortality not captured in the Covid-19 death toll.
Official health bulletins attributed only 50,435 deaths to Covid-19 during the same year.
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