Govt to take a call on continuation of hotels as Covid facilities in Delhi

To discuss the matter and take a decision in this regard, Arvind Kejriwal is scheduled to chair a meeting with the health and revenue departments on Wednesday.

With the active Covid-19 cases in Delhi at 10,887 on Tuesday, the Aam Aadmi Party government is planning to release several hotels and banquet halls that were converted into extended hospitals since May 29, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s office said on Tuesday.

On June 12, when Covid cases in the Capital were surging, the Delhi government released a list of 77 banquet halls and 40 hotels that were to be converted into Covid facilities to quickly make up for the lack of hospital beds. (HT file photo)

To discuss the matter and take a decision in this regard, Kejriwal is scheduled to chair a meeting with the health and revenue departments on Wednesday.

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On June 12, when Covid cases in the Capital were surging, the Delhi government released a list of 77 banquet halls and 40 hotels that were to be converted into Covid facilities to quickly make up for the lack of hospital beds. A total of over 15,800 beds were planned to be provided in the listed hotels (4,628 beds) and banquet halls (11,229 beds).

The plan was approved by the Delhi government on May 29, when it had identified five hotels to be converted into extended Covid hospitals. These hotels included Crowne Plaza which was attached to Batra Hospital; Hotel Surya (Apollo); Hotel Siddharth (BL Kapur Memorial Hospital); Hotel Jivitesh (Sir Gangaram Hospital); and Sheraton Saket (Max Super Speciality Hospital).

Of these, only Sheraton hotel in Saket operated as an extended hospital for the longest time, the rest of the hotels did not receive any patients.

“We have 16,038 Covid beds in various hospitals and 12,996 are vacant even now. Since we have beds available in hospitals, we were getting a lot of requests from different hotels and banquet hall owners to delink or relieve their facilities from Covid duty. Now that the situation seems to have stabilised a bit, a meeting has been called to decide exactly how it is to be done and from when,” said an official in the chief minister’s office on condition of anonymity.

The official, however, said that the delinking will happen only in a phased manner as the situation may worsen any time.The government has also consistently warned against complacency and the need to adhere to safety and distancing norms.