Coronavirus crisis: OYO's Aditya Ghosh offers quarantine facilities across India

Aditya Ghosh, OYO board member, said his firm will do "whatever it takes" to help states in providing quarantine facilities even as the number of coronavirus cases continue to rise steadily. The deadly virus has infected 562 people in India so far and has killed ten.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the nation for the second time on coronavirus on Tuesday, announced a 21-day complete lockdown across India. The lockdown came into effect on March 25.

"It's a difficult time for everyone. The PM has shown strong decisive leadership and we fully support the move. There will be a lot of businesses that will go through immediate stress but the focus is to make sure there are enough testing, healthcare facility and assistance available," said Ghosh in an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18.

"It's a tough time but if we can make it out of this if we do to together," he added.

OYO has committed to offering quarantine facilities across India and even in the US.

"We will do whatever it takes to aid states in providing quarantine facilities. Before we talk about bailout, stimulus... we need to focus on containment," said Ghosh.

"The focus will be on helping quarantine facilities in gateway and intersection points like Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore, Chennai. These are the areas which have the large airports and the intersection points from where the infection spreads. Biggest risk areas are intersection points and so we have offered whatever help needed in these areas."

According to Ghosh, it was not  just about creating quarantine areas, but also about providing space for the first responders, the people carrying out the essential services at this time.

"First responders like police officers, hospital staff, drivers, watchmen can't keep going back home. We are enabling providing stay options for them. The effort right now is to relieve the pressure from healthcare facilities like hospitals and create as much support as possible," he explains.

Ghosh has suggested an approach that corporates can apply while supporting the government. He says firstly, companies need to acknowledge the huge amount of pressure in getting essential goods and groceries and assist in providing facilities, transportation.

"There needs to be an acknowledgement that warehouses need labour. Goods are not being delivered due to a lack of transportation. My worry is our daily wage workers will not be able to meet wage bills by the end of the month. I have to call out the efforts that companies like Zomato are doing to create campaigns that ensure keeping the livelihood of daily wage earners. OYO is trying to work with these companies to help daily wage earners in every way possible..."

The second point Ghosh raised was on how companies must focus on just essential operations, and try to keep costs down. This would both reduce pressure on the state as well as keep people on payrolls.

The third point that Ghosh raised is that of reducing the stigma of the infection. "This is not leprosy or something that needs to be ostracized."

When asked about the impact of the virus on the business, Ghosh said that the company had already started feeling the hit due to its global presence, especially in China.

"What worked as a silver lining of sorts in this tough time was that we were able to learn from early experiences and implement it in India and other regions immediately. We announced work from home much earlier in India, we put checks in place and maintained health standards much earlier. When we look at a market like China which is ahead of the curve, we are seeing green shoots in terms of recovery," he said.

Ghosh, however, said that there will be a massive hit in occupancy, traffic numbers, but temporarily.

"Companies like ours are businesses with high variable cost versus fixed cost. When traffic moves up or down, smart businesses will be able to see a lesser impact. When we start turning the corner, products, and services which are in the affordable category, like OYO, should come back very well."