They are used to looking after their guests, rushing to the room to address any requirement. But now these hotels are operating under a regimen that bars them from meeting their guests after they check in, leave alone step into their rooms.

With Covid-19 cases on the rise in the city, there has been a spike in the number of people who came in contact with a patient and needing to be quarantined for 14 days. While New Town houses the city’s biggest government-run quarantine centre at NBCC Square in Action Area III, there are several private lodges and hotels that have offered their addresses as pay-and-use quarantine centres for those who do not want to stay in the government’s free accommodations.

The state government had approached the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Eastern India with the offer. With occupancy nil, it was a way for the hotels to register some business. On March 25, Swasthya Bhavan issued an order with a list of the hotels that offered their facilities.

“We have six guests currently quarantining with us. They stay confined in their room for the entire duration of their stay. We are giving them packed meals in disposable containers. Our staff members leave the food on a table outside, which they pick up afterwards. We are also leaving disposal bags for the guests to trash the containers in,” said Bilas Das, general manager of Fern Residency.

The meal they are provided is a set menu. “It is impossible to provide the regular menu during lockdown,” says Das.

These guests do not check in the way it happens in normal circumstances. “We get a call from the health department, informing us about their arrival. They go to the rooms directly and send their identity proof by WhatsApp or mail,” said Debaditya Ghosh, assistant manager of Fab Hotels, which runs a string of budget hotels across the city.

The group’s four facilities — Red Velvet Inn, Eco Stay, Stay Inn and Durbar Guest House in the Eco Park police station area — have a total of about 35 people in quarantine. So high is the demand that all the allotted rooms are now occupied. “Most are from Howrah. About 10 to 14 have checked out. One had come from Karunamoyee, Salt Lake,” Ghosh adds.

A lodge on Rajarhat Main Road, which did not wish to be named, has five of its 15 rooms allotted for quarantine currently occupied. “They requested to shift to a paid facility after spending a few days at the government quarantine centre. We check their temperature daily with thermal gun,” says Sourabh Dutta, the facility’s operations manager. “Four have checked out. All of them had travel history to foreign countries,” he adds.

The staff at most hotels had initially panicked at the thought of having to serve people serving quarantine. “But once we provided them masks, gloves and personal protective equipment, they felt confident,” Das says.

The biggest relief for all the hotels is none of the guests has tested positive so far. “So once the quarantine period is over, they get a release letter from the health department and leave. After that the room is sanitised,” Ghosh says.

Local protest

Many private facilities are facing hostility from local residents. Recently people protested when health officials went to inspect a house in New Town’s AI Block. In BE Block, Salt Lake, residents were upset on spotting a guest house in their block on a list of facilities purportedly drawn up by the government doing the rounds on social media. “I have received four or five calls from Salt Lake. I assured them that quarantine centres will not be set up in dense residential areas. That has been the chief minister’s directive,” minister Sujit Bose told The Telegraph Salt Lake.