The Hindu Business Line : Fortis to launch more health cities; Ansal for value-add initiatives

Healthcity project: Mr Shivinder M. Singh (right), Managing Director, Fortis Group, and Mr Pranav Ansal, Director, Ansal API, at a press conference in the Capital on Wednesday.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, July 4 The Fortis Group plans to establish 10 health-cities over the next 10 years, including the Gurgaon Medicity and one in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh that it announced recently.

The Ranbaxy-promoted company will be investing between Rs 500 -800 crore over a period of 7-8 years in establishing a medicity on 52 acres of land that it has purchased from Ansal API in the latter’s Sushant Golf City in Lucknow. The facility will include colleges for medicine, nursing, dental and allied sciences, said Mr Shivinder Mohan Singh, Managing Director, Fortis Healthcare.

The company has already started work on the mega Gurgaon Medicity project, at the heart of which is a multi-speciality hospital. According to Mr Singh, the project is to come up at a cost of over Rs 1,200 crore.

The health city projects will come under Fortis Healthcare Holding Ltd, or a separate division to ensure compliance of Medical Council of India’s rules that allow only non-profit organisations to run medical colleges.

Lucknow project

Announcing the partnership for the Lucknow medicity, Mr Pranav Ansal, Director, API said: “Uttar Pradesh is the most populated city with 27 crore people but has no world class medical facility. The project in the heart of Lucknow will attract a large number of people as well as students.” Mr Ansal added: “We have also planned a retirement village complex, close to the Fortis medicity, that we believe will add a great value to our project.”

The north India-based real estate developer has reserved 100 acres at its mega Greater Noida project for another medicity. Mr Pranav Ansal said discussions were on with a couple of companies including Fortis Healthcare in this regard. The real estate developer is, however, likely to undertake on its own the development and running of the 100 acres reserved for educational institutes on the same site under the Chiranjeev Charitable Trust.

Ansal API hopes to have completed land acquisition for the 5,000-acre Greater Noida project in the next six to nine months. With this the company’s land bank will go up to about 12,000 acres, said Mr Pranav Ansal.

According to the Director, dialogue is on between Ansal and George Soros for an expansion of the latter’s two per cent stake in the company. Partnerships on the basis of special purpose vehicle are also being explored. “We also have a joint venture with Deyaar, the real estate arm of the Dubai Islamic Bank, which is investing Rs 200 crore in the country through us,” said Mr Pranav Ansal.

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