NEW DELHI: As India wages war against COVID-19, more isolation wards were added by the Ordnance Factory Board, while a chain of 32 paramilitary forces hospitals across the country, with a total capacity of about 1,900 beds, have been taken over by the government for isolation and treatment of COVID-19 affected patients, officials said on Wednesday.
These 32 hospitals are operated by forces like the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and are located at places like Greater Noida, Hyderabad, Guwahati, Jammu, Tekanpur (Gwalior), Dimapur, Imphal, Nagpur, Silchar, Bhopal, Avadi, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Pune and Bengaluru, among others.
The "urgent" decision to use the "composite hospitals" of these forces, also called as the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), was taken after a high-level meeting of the Union Home Ministry that was chaired by the secretary of border management. "Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has designated 285 beds for isolation wards in handling Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases," the Ministry of Defence informed.