Investments in the private healthcare sector will go beyond hospitals as several investors announced plans to set up health cities and nursing colleges, at the sixth edition of the Bengal Global Business Summit.
The JIS Group will set up a health city at Howrah’s Santragachi, around 14km west of Kolkata via National Highway 12, with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore, said Taranjit Singh, managing director of the group.
The health city is expected to come up in the next five to six years near the bus terminus in Santragachi, which is being developed by the state government. It will have a hospital with 1,200 beds, Singh said.
“We announced details of the project in the just concluded Bengal Global Business Summit. The health city is coming up on a 30-acre plot. We have already bought 20 acres and are in the process of procuring the rest. The health city will have a helipad,” he said on Friday.
According to Singh, the health city will have six towers, each of 20 floors.
“We look forward to providing health care on a par with the global standard. We would also like people from other states and abroad to come to Bengal and get themselves treated at our health city. That’s why we are developing the helipad so the air ambulance service could be introduced,” Singh said.
The first part of the hospital is likely to come up in a year’s time, he added.
Charnock Hospital will spend Rs 200 crore to set up five nursing colleges across Bengal with the state government, in a public-private partnership mode.
“We will tie up with state-run hospitals to set up the nursing colleges,” said Prashant Sharma, managing director, Charnock Hospital. “Each college will have 200 seats.”
The Healthworld Hospitals group will spend Rs 450 crore to set up a hospital in Asansol and a chain of laboratories and pharmaceutical and consumable manufacturing units. The hospital will be operational by the end of this year, said Arunangshu Ganguly, chairman, Healthworld Hospitals.
“Out of the 450 beds (in the new hospital), 160 will be critical care beds. There will be 14 modular operating theatres, including a hybrid theatre, two cardiac catheterisation laboratories, 12 ICUs, sick neonatal care unit, transplant ICU and a component blood bank, among other facilities,” said Ganguly.
The group will have a pharmaceutical and consumable manufacturing unit at Panagarh Industrial Park.
Belle Vue Clinic will spend Rs 400 crore to set up a 400-bed hospital in New Town, behind the Hidco building, on a two-acre plot. “We had to change the design of the hospital after the Covid pandemic. We need to create more isolation wards. We expect to start construction in October,” said Pradip Tondon, CEO of Belle Vue.
Woodlands Multispeciality Hospitals is also planning a 100-bed standalone cancer treatment unit on its Alipore premises. “We will spend Rs 300 crore and that will create 400 new jobs,” said Rupali Basu, managing director and CEO, Woodlands.