MMRDA completes 970-bed facility at BKC in 17 days

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has completed phase-2 of the Covid-19 hospital in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in 17 days. The facility

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has completed phase-2 of the Covid-19 hospital in Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in 17 days. The facility has 970 beds, including 108 intensive care unit (ICU) beds and 12 with dialysis units.

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The facility will be handed over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday at 12.30pm. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is expected to be present at the event.

RA Rajeev, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA, said, “It was a challenge to build the ICU facility but we managed to pull it off in 17 days.” Another official from MMRDA said that the work started at the end of May but the agency had to battle the cyclone and heavy rains in Mumbai, which posed a huge challenge.

Both the phases together now have 2,004 beds. Phase-1 of the facility, which has 1,034 beds, was handed over to BMC at the end of May. Owing to Cyclone Nisarga that hit the state On June 3, patients from phase-1 were shifted out of the facility temporarily.

Thackeray had earlier asked MMRDA to assist in setting up modular quarantine and isolation facilities to ramp up the number of beds, as part of the city’s preparedness to battle the pandemic. Mumbai alone has over 55,000 cases, the highest in Maharashtra.