KPC to add clinics

Kolkata based KPC Medical College and Hospital has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) for modernising five KMC hospitals and 28 municipal ward medical offices and develop a tele-medicine facility to link all these places.

Without divulging details regarding the cost of the project, Sharad Jha, country head of KPC, said the aim of the group was to establish itself by getting connected with as many medicial facilities as possible. The group was also in the process of acquiring 300 acres at Sonarpur for a "Knowledge City".

This would cost Rs 500 crore and offer facilities required by industries in two years. All the funding would be done by California based NRI, Kali Pradip Chaudhuri, the founder of the group.

"The ultimate objective would be to take medical education to the next higher level through a fully integrated and balanced curriculum," Jha claimed.

The group aimed to tie up with a pharmaceutical company for manufacturing drugs. "We are at very advanced stage of negotiation and it would take another six months for the things to get operational," Jha said.

The group would start a specialty clinic at its medical college premises in Jadavpur, a Rs 150 crore venture which would have disciplines like neurosurgery and orthopedics.

The group expected its medical college classes to start from 2008-09 session and was waiting for clearance from Medical Council of India by May 2008.