Tirupati: BIRRD to turn into Covid hospital
TTD agrees for making Vishnu Nivasam as quarantine centre
Tirupati: The rapid spread of Covid-19 in Chittoor district, particularly in Tirupati, can be gauged from the fact that the TTD had on Wednesday decided to hand over its BIRRD (Balaji Institute of Surgery, Research, Rehabilitation for the Disabled hospital (Orthopedic), near SVIMS and also its massive pilgrim amenities complex Vishnu Nivasam, near the railway station to district administration for the purpose of Covid hospital and Covid Centre, respectively.
District Collector Dr Narayan Bharath Gupta sought the help of the TTD and asked them to hand over BIRRD and Vishnu Nivasam to the district administration to cope with the soaring number of Covid cases in Chittoor district more so in the pilgrim city of Tirupati. Executive Officer Anil Kumar Singhal agreed to hand over them to the district at administration immediately.
The BIRRD hospital would function as an extension of SVIMS to help the hospital to tide over the ever-increasing cases of Covid infected patients coming from other districts as well while the 400-room well-furnished Vishnu Nivasam would be converted as Covid Centre for the district administration to use it as treatment or as a quarantine centre.
The TTD Executive Officer directed the concerned to shift the existing Slotted Sarva Darshanam token issuing counters at Vishnu Nivasam to Alipiri Bhudevi Complex enhancing the counter numbers which are already existing there. This certainly would have impact on providing accommodation for the pilgrims. But such a decision had to be taken in view of the pandemic, officials said.
The TTD EO directed the concerned officers of the TTD to provide branded sanitizers to the employees working in all local temples of the TTD.
The EO also reviewed the food that is being provided to employees as per the menu decided by the Employees Committee and also on the COVID tests that are being carried out for employees working at Tirumala.
Additional EO AV Dharma Reddy, JEOs P Basant Kumar, Bhargavi, CVSO Gopinath Jatti, SVIMS Director Dr Vengamma, Health Officer of TTD Dr RR Reddy, Joint Collector Chandra Mouli, who is also the district nodal officer for Covid and Deputy Collector Rangaswamy present.
It is pertinent to note that the total number of Covid cases stood at 331 while Tirupati reported about 1300 cases that is more than 40 percent of the cases in the district which naturally worrying the TTD and Civic authorities.