When Maharashtra is getting tightly noosed with the increasing number of COVID-19 cases across the State, the Brihamumbai Municipal Corporation, in accordance to disaster preparedness, up for the opening number of ‘jumbo’ isolation centres in Mumbai, officials reportedly said on Monday, following Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) relinquishes operational charge of its newly-built 1,000-bed facility at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to the municipality.

By far, the fresh facility, that is erected on the BKC’s exhibition grounds, will primarily handle noncritical COVID-19 patients; the BMC is laser focussed to open several such centres, accumulating 7,500 more beds in the process, ahead of the monsoon.

These isolation facilities are sparsely located across the city in Aarey Diary in Worli, Dahisar’s Octroi Check Naka, the Richardson & Cruddas warehouse in Mulund and the New Zealand Hostel in Goregaon.

City and Industrial Development Corporation, or CIDCO, headed by Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde, is expected to construct the facility at Richardson & Cruddas.

Reportedly, the civic body is working upon to get around 35,000 beds by month-end under the Phase 2 plans for setting up isolation centres.

The officials reportedly said that around 7,500 additional beds, including ICU beds, will be ready to use by the end of the month. “Thirty-five more ICU beds will be ready in five days there. At the Mahalaxmi Racecourse, 350 beds will be ready in three days and 450 beds will be ready in 14 days. 120 of these will be ICU beds. At the MMRDA grounds in BKC 1,020 beds are ready. Another unit of 100 ICU beds and 900 normal beds will be ready here in 15 days,” a senior civic official is quoted as saying.

“In Mulund, we are fixing 1,800 beds and in Dahisar 900 beds. Two-hundred of them are going to be ICU beds. the most important centre is arising at the NSE in Goregaon, which can have 2,600 beds, of which 200 are going to be ICU beds,” the official is quoted as saying.  

The officials said that the new isolation centres won't just house asymptomatic COVID-19 patients but even be ready to treat mild symptomatic patients.

Sanjeev Jaiswal, Additional Municipal Commissioner (City) said that these centres are going to be field hospitals. A number of them are greenfield projects. But they're going to be equipped with oxygen lines and even ICU beds.