Hinduja Group to foray healthcare sector in Bengal

Kolkata: The Hinduja Group is looking to foray into the healthcare sector in West Bengal by setting up a ‘medicity’ in and around Kolkata, the State Industry and Commerce Minister, Mr Nirupam Sen, told presspersons here on Saturday.

The project will comprise a medical college, a nurse’s college, a dental college, and a residential unit for patients besides the anchor hospital. “This would need a minimum of 50 acres of land in accordance with the Centre’s stipulations,” Mr Sen said. However, if only 5-10 acres of land is available, the Hindujas will have to be happy with only the hospital, he said.

If this project materialises, it will be the second such project in West Bengal, the first being the proposed Rs 1,000-crore health-city project being set up by Consulting Engineering Services in Burdwan, which is expected to be completed by 2012.

“We have also asked the Hindujas to take charge of some of the closed-down hospitals in the State,” Mr Sen said. The Minister, along with State Government officials, had visited Mumbai recently to showcase the West Bengal investment scenario, where they discussed opportunities with the Hindujas. “We have already passed on the proposal to the Health Department,” the Minister said.

Last September, the Hinduja group firm, Hinduja TMT, had formed a joint venture with Limitless, a real estate subsidiary of Dubai World to set up such healthcare units across the country, with an initial investment of $1 billion.

The Industry Minister said: “We have asked Reliance Industries and the Hindujas to invest in the proposed petroleum, chemical and petrochemical investment regions in Nayachar. But they want the deep-sea port to come up first”.

As regards his meeting with Mr Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai, Mr Sen said the latter had said that oil from the Krishna Godavari basin in Andhra Pradesh would be sent to West Bengal through a pipeline by 2011.