The Rs 2,500-crore Escorts group plans to have six cardiac care hospitals in six different cities of north India by 2004 and plans to invest around Rs 300 crore in its healthcare business.
At present, the group has a cardiac care hospital each in Delhi and Faridabad. All the six hospitals of the group will be based on the hub-and-spokes model, which is also being followed by other players such as Max India, Fortis and the Apollo Hospitals Group in the healthcare business.
To begin with, the company is setting up a greenfield facility at the cost of Rs 60 crore in Jaipur. It is also close to acquiring a hospital in Amritsar. Besides this, the group is also exploring opportunities in two other north Indian cities where it will set up two hospitals costing around Rs 70 crore each, Escorts group chairman Rajan Nanda told Business Standard.
According to Sriram Khattar, group head, corporate strategy and corporate affairs, Escorts Ltd, both the Jaipur and Amritsar projects are likely to be finalised during the course of this week. While the hospital in Amritsar would have a 150-bed facility, the one in Jaipur would have 200 beds.
The group has earmarked Rs 180 crore for the modernisation of the existing hospitals in Delhi and Faridabad and for the acquisition of the two new hospitals in Jaipur and Amritsar. The group plans to expand the number of beds in Delhi and Faridabad over the next two years.
In Delhi, the Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre would have 330 beds, instead of 220. In Faridabad, the Escorts Hospital would have 255 beds, up from 155 beds at present. Besides this, the group plans to have 10 heart command centres around Delhi and Faridabad at the cost of around Rs 1.5 crore each.
According to Khattar, the group had conducted a nation-wide study and found that there is a paucity of good cardiac care centres in north and east India. "In both west and south India, there are far more cardiac care centres as compared to the population vis-a-vis the east and north," he added. And since the paying capacity in east India is comparitively much lower, Escorts has decided to expand in north India alone, Khattar added.
