In what has left hotels across Punjab in the lurch, a majority of the NRIs coming back under the Vande Bharat scheme have opted out of paid quarantine leaving many hotels undergoing heavy losses.
Expecting around 20,000 returnees, the state had gone ahead and asked private hotels to set up special quarantine rooms, ranging in cost from between between Rs 1,000 to Rs 7,000 per day, depending upon the accommodation. As per the plan, hotels that had shut shop during lockdown restarted themselves and readied around 3,750 rooms—the majority of which have not been occupied so far.
The state in addition to these rooms, had also set up around 3,000 rooms in government facilities—the majority being free of cost. Apparently, around 400 of those who returned chose the free quarantine.
“We have so far got no update about any body coming in or checking in. We were asked to get quarantine facilities ready and we paid double to get hotels ready, hire staff, arrange sanitization, arrange health facilities, security, etc, awaiting the returnees—but nobody has come. If government is offering them free quarantine, why would anybody come to hotels?" says Punjab Hotel Association President Satish Arora.
"We were already suffering losses and getting ready as quarantine centers costed a moolah. We have been asked to ensure that all provisions of epidemic act need to be followed and we have converted Hotels into hospitals. Now sitting idle for last seven days we are incurring losses of around Rs 1 crore each day and this can't go on. They need to compensate [us] or many hotels will never be able to revive again,” he added.
Repeated attempts to contact Rahul Bhandari, Secretary NRI Affairs, Punjab proved futile. However, a senior official said, “We are expecting more people to come. There have been queries from people only about Hotel-like quarantine so in case anybody seeks more services at quarantine centers, then they can opt for Hotels. We cannot bind them to stay anywhere—it is their choice.”
It may be noted that, unlike Haryana which has quarantined all returnees in Gurugram and Faridabad (districts closest to the airport), Punjab sent all returnees to their home districts and quarantined them there itself. The returnees are against the same and have demanded home quarantine.
“Its funny that they send us back to our native districts and we have to be quarantined when we are a stone's throw away from houses. The MHA allows asymptomatic patients to be home-isolated but we are quarantined in centers. We should be allowed to go home,” said one of the returnees from Dubai .
The state government, however, has mandated that NRIs will have to be quarantined in hotel and institutional rooms across the state when they return back and they shouldn't be allowed home quarantine. Thus, all districts except Mansa and Taran Taran have arranged hotel rooms under supervision of deputy commissioners. As per state orders, hotels have been told to arrange a doctor who will check the quarantined people in the hotel once a day and report to the nodal officer of the district. Special arrangements have been made to tie-up with laboratories and arrange for waste disposal. The hotels have been entrusted with responsibility of ensuring that no quarantined person runs away from the hotel. They will also keep their relatives at bay.
As per orders, if any of these guidelines are violated, then the hotel owner will be booked under section 188 of IPC (disobedience to order of public servant) as per the provisions of Epidemic Diseases Act 1897.
