MMRDA begins work on another 1,000-bed Covid facility

Two days after handing over the first phase of the city’s first open-ground isolation and quarantine facility to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the

Two days after handing over the first phase of the city’s first open-ground isolation and quarantine facility to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) on Wednesday started works on the second phase of the makeshift Covid-19 hospital at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) grounds.

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The new facility will also have 1,000 beds, of which 100 beds will serve as the intensive care unit (ICU), while rest of the 900 beds will have oxygen and non-oxygen facilities, officials said. The work is expected to be completed in another 15-20 days. On Wednesday, authorities started base work and ground-levelling activities for the facility.

Unlike the first phase, the second phase will also treat critical symptomatic patients. “The facility will be constructed a little ahead of the existing phase which was handed over to BMC on Monday,” said an official from MMRDA. Both the structures will not face any issues during the upcoming monsoon, officials said.

Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray had asked MMRDA to assist in setting-up modular and quarantine and isolation facility in order to ramp up the number of beds as part of the city’s preparedness to battle the pandemic. Mumbai alone has over 22,000 cases, the highest in Maharashtra.

The first phase of the facility was built in 15 days. MMRDA plans to build another isolation and quarantine facility in Thane.