OBJECTIVES To find out the average cost of hospitalization and length of hospital stay for patients infected with carbapenem-resistant bacteria and compare it with that of patients infected with carbapenem-sensitive bacteria. METHODS A cross sectional study was carried out for 3 months and the data for hospitalization cost was collected for the patients with carbapenem resistant and carbapenem sensitive infections from the medicine ICU and the microbiology department for 114 patients with bacterial infections who were admitted to Intensive care unit. The data was analyzed for the type of infection and the average hospitalization cost. The median hospitalization cost was calculated for both the group of patients. RESULTS Out of 247 patients admitted in the ICU during a three month period 70(28.34%) were found to be having carbapenem-resistant infections and 44(17.81%) were found to have carbapenem-sensitive infections. The median length of stay in the hospital was 9 days for carbapenem-sensitive patients while 23.5 days in case of carbapenem-resistant patients. The median hospitalization cost was found to be 40185 INR in case of carbapenem sensitive patients while it was 126889.5 INR in case of carbapenem-resistant patients. CONCLUSIONS Carbapenem-resistance is observed to be increasing the morbidity and cost burden on the patients substantially. Increased length of hospital stay leads to an increase in the incidence of Nosocomial infections which further leads to the increased morbidity, mortality and cost burden on the society.