By Sumit Kumar Singh
New Delhi, Jul 1 (IANS): As Covid-19 infection cases in Delhi on a steep rise, the Central government takes help of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and armed forces to set up a 1,000 bed hospital in the national capital. The hospital will have 250 intensive care unit beds. The Home Ministry is monitoring the setting of the hospital which is to come up near Delhi Airport on Indian Air Force land.
The Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla held a meeting with all the stakeholders in the North Block on Wednesday afternoon. Sources said that the hospital to become functional in the next four to five days. The construction of the hospital was started two weeks ago on the barren land of the Air Force.
Sources also said that setting up of 1,000 bed hospital in a record couple of weeks time was a challenging task before DRDO. The DRDO has developed several indigenous medical equipments in the fight against Covid.
It was a lack of hospitals for the Covid-19 patients in Delhi, the home ministry decided to take the help of DRDO and armed forces.
Till Tuesday, the total number of Covid-19 cases stand to 87,360 and the death toll to 2,742. Further, Delhi's recovery rate is recorded at 66.8 per cent, with 58,348 people recovering so far.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah has taken control of the Covid-19 crisis in Delhi and had stated recently that by June 30 every house in containment zones will be inspected by health officials. Further he had stated there would be 30,000 beds available soon. He also disagreed with state's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's statement that Delhi would have 5.5 lakh Covid-19 patients by July 31.
Last week, Shah had rejected claims that Delhi is witnessing community transmission of the global pandemic.
In the meantime, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had also announced the creation of a "plasma bank" at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences Hospital. The government is encouraging people who have been cured of the coronavirus disease to come forward and donate plasma to help treat other patients.