The spike in Covid-19 cases has prompted several municipalities in south Bengal to open safe homes to accommodate asymptomatic patients and ease the burden on hospitals.

Hoteliers in East Midnapore’s Digha offered to lend their properties to treat people with mild symptoms for reasonable rates following a proposal from the CPM.

The Khardah municipality on Monday inaugurated a new safe home at Vivekananda stadium in the town where at least 70 asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms could be accommodated.

Barrackpore commissioner Manoj Kumar Verma and president of the Indian Medical Association Santanu Sen were present at the inauguration .

A source said despite the state government opening safe homes in various districts, those were inadequate as the number of cases were increasing every day. So, civic bodies are trying to find accommodations to manage the crisis locally.

“The asymptomatic patients are advised to stay in home quarantine but there are many people who have no separate room or toilet. So, we have opened a safe home for the residents of our town. There would be doctors and nurses to take care of them. We will keep an ambulance on standby at the safe home to carry the patients with symptoms,” said Kajal Sinha, the chairperson of board of administrators at the Khardah municipality.

Sources said the health department had promised to provide staff and logistical help to the safe homes run by the municipalities.

The Diamond Harbour municipality also opened a safe home last week and many other civic bodies like Halisahar in North 24-Parganas and Serampore in Hooghly are preparing to open their own safe homes.

“We have called a meeting on Tuesday to find a building for a safe home,” said Amiya Mukherjee, the chairperson of board of administrators of Serampore municipality.

Raju Sahani, the chairperson of the board of administrators at the Halisahar municipality, said: “We have already earmarked a home for distressed children to turn it into a safe home.”

In Digha, hoteliers have welcomed a suggestion made to the district authorities by the CPM to use the hotels that are witnessing lack of business as paid safe homes.

CPM leader Mahmud Hossain had last week written to senior district officials to set up safe home facilities for affluent asymptomatic Covid patients under 50. The letter comes in the midst of a notable spike in Covid cases in the district this month, with 264 (out of a total 1,094) fresh cases being recorded since Tuesday.

The CPM had made the suggestion following an email order issued by CMOH Nitai Mondal advising home quarantine for asymptomatic patients in the face of shortage of hospital beds.

The proposal also comes in the midst of a severe blow dealt by the lockdown to tourism revenues in otherwise bustling tourist towns like Digha and Mandarmani.

“For four months, we have been bleeding dozens of crores of rupees. We are hopeful that such a proposal goes through and the paid facility will pump in money that will help the industry survive in such trying times,” said Digha Hoteliers’ Association joint secretary Dipra Das Chakravorty.

CPM district secretary Niranjan Sihi said the proposal had been made in “public interest” and for the sake of the hotel industry to enter into a safe home partnership as soon as possible.