Business Standard

Birthing boutiques

Apollo Health and Sunrise Medicare enter the premium maternity homes market

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Maitreyee Handique New Delhi
Motherhood is big business. A CII-Mckinsey report estimates that the size of the Indian maternity market is roughly Rs 5,000 crore, which is a fraction of the total Rs 110,000 crore health care industry. The spend on maternity is likely to double by 2012.
 
To capture a slice of the baby boom market, Apollo Health and Lifestyle Ltd (AHLL), a subsidiary of the Apollo Group, has entered into a franchisee arrangement with Sunrise Medicare Ltd to launch the first 26-room designer birthing centre, The Cradle, in Delhi.
 
Sunrise Medicare Ltd is a 50:50 joint venture promoted by Amit Burman of the Dabur Group and Naresh Talwar of the Talwar group, a car components manufacturer and the Mercedes Benz dealer in north India.
 
Promising to make birthing a joyous experience, Sunrise Medicare has invested nearly Rs 20 crore in its first 50,000 sq ft "boutique birthing centre" overlooking the Jahapanah forest in Greater Kailash II.
 
Apart from the state-of the-art medical facilities at its labour, delivery and recovery rooms, the centre offers obstetric and gynaecological services, and classes for childbirth preparation, diet and nutrition counselling, genetic counselling and parents and sibling education classes.
 
Besides, the centre will also have a 24-hour multi-cuisine restaurant, a florist and a bookstore as well as a designer boutique selling things for the new-born babies and their mothers. It will also boast of a communications centre to handle your requirements of sending messages and pictures to friends and relatives through the web gallery. Older siblings will not be forgotten; a small play area with nannies is being set up to keep them occupied.
 
"We are looking at providing services to make the mother feel important," says Amit Burman, Sunrise Medicare's joint managing director.
 
Adds Ratan Jalan, CEO of AHLL, "Routinely, pregnant women end up in hospitals flooded by the sick. Since birthing is not an illness, we wanted to create a place which will be warm and reassuring so that parents can enjoy the process."
 
Sunrise Medicare is targeting to handle 2,000 deliveries a year from its first centre and hopes to break even in the second year. AHLL which also runs the chain of Apollo clinics expects to take the total number of clinics up from 20 to 50 this year and hopes to earn Rs 11 crore from royalty for the year. Besides, it also plans to open clinics in Riyadh, Qatar, Kuwait, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
 
According to Sunrise chairman Naresh Talwar, the company plans to open 10-12 Cradles in cities like Mumbai and Ludhiana. Currently, Sunrise runs one Apollo Clinic in Faridabad.
 
Naresh Talwar's son and Sunrise's joint director Varun adds: "We have decided to enter this niche area (maternity boutiques) and hope to invest about Rs 70 crore in the next three years."
 
But at between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1 lakh giving birth at The Cradle will not be cheap. "We're mainly targeting the high-end customers," says Jalan.

 
 

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First Published: Apr 16 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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