BMC to shut Covid-19 jumbo centres

Jumbo centres, which were built to tackle the COVID pandemic and were extremely beneficial during the first and second waves, have now become a burden to the civic body. The BMC is spending crores of rupees on rent and upkeep of these centres even though no patients are being admitted. A decision on closing down most of the centres is expected this week.

Once the jumbo centres are shut, the BMC will shift all the machinery and equipment to the Andheri godown to be used for newly built hospitals in suburbs. Apart from this, oxygen plants will also be shifted to peripheral hospitals.

"We will keep parts of some of the centres in reserve as a precautionary measure and close the other ones. The decision will be finalised after a meeting with officials concerned. SevenHills will run as a dedicated hospital," said Suresh Kakani, additional BMC commissioner.

The jumbo centre at Kanjurmarg in January, 2021. File pic

In the third wave, around 80 per cent of the beds at jumbo centres remained vacant. Currently, one or two wards in NESCO, BKC, Mulund and Kanjurmarg centres are active while all others are on stand-by. Of the 16,473 beds in nine jumbo centres, around 143 beds or less than one per cent are occupied. "It is not practical to run these centres without any occupancy, but we have to be extremely cautious as we may need them later on," Kakani.

As of Monday, of the total 23,334 beds in private as well as in civic hospitals, 1,407 were occupied.

BMC started building these jumbo centres to deal with the rising number of COVID patients. During the first wave, jumbo centres came up at NSCI (Worli), BKC, NESCO (Goregaon), Dahisar, Mulund, Byculla and their capacities were increased in phases. Three new centres at Sion, Kanjurmarg and Malad were opened during the second wave to deal with lack of beds. The total number of beds at these centres now stands at over 15,000, and cost for running and maintaining the same also rose accordingly.

Meanwhile, the BMC submitted a claim for reimbursement of COVID-19 expenses till September 21 worth Rs 2,764 crore to the district collectors.

In the 2020-21 financial year, the BMC spent R1,809 on COVID management. It spent additional Rs 1,304 between March to November 2021 to tackle the outbreak, of which R514 crore was spent only on rent and maintenance of jumbo centres. The civic administration has also sought an additional Rs 300 crore for the same till March.

As the opposition parties started raising questions over the expenditure, the BMC temporarily closed five of the centres and kept four open after July 2021. But as cases started rising in December, the BMC cleared a proposal of R105 crore to run five jumbo centres for three months. The contract cost is mainly for staff and equipment, and does not include meals, cleanliness, security, fire services, water, sewerage management, maintenance of machinery and oxygen supply.

Rs 514CR
Maintenance cost of jumbo centres from March to Nov, 2021

Rs 2,764
COVID reimbursement (in crores) filed by BMC till Sept 2021