Apollo to set up ₹400-cr medical college in Kolkata

Apollo Hospitals will invest about ₹400 crore to build a medical college and hospital in Kolkata.

Coming up on the southern outskirts of the city, the hospital will be set up by the Apollo Hospitals Education & Research Trust.

This is the second such ‘Apollo Medical College and Hospital’ in the country, after Hyderabad, which admits 100 students per session and has a 550-bed hospital.

According to Prathap C Reddy, Chairman, Apollo Hospitals, the Kolkata medical college will admit 150 students initially, which can be scaled up to 200. The adjoining hospital will have 1,000 beds.

Expected to be completed in three phases, the Kolkata facility is likely to start admissions by June 2017 or 2018. It will have 21 courses. The foundation stone for the project has already been laid.

“Within the first three years, some 300 to 500 beds are likely to be operational (at the hospital). And by the fifth year, all 1,000 beds will be operational. We are trying to start admissions (in the college) by July 2017 or 2018,” he told BusinessLine .

Reddy was in the city to inaugurate Apollo Hospital’s personalised health check facility for the eastern region.

The group will invest around ₹750 crore to set up five new hospitals over the next six months – one each in Vizag, Nellore and Guwahati; and two in Mumbai. Over 500-odd beds, at the cost of ₹1.4 crore per bed, will be added.

“Currently, we have 9,000-odd beds. And over the next six months, this will increase to 10,000,” Reddy said.

Over the last one year, Apollo has spent around ₹1,000 crore in setting up new ventures in cities such as Indore, Nashik, Guwahati and Tiruchi.

The company is also open to inorganic growth, said Chairman Reddy. “It is not that we are averse to acquisitions. We’ll take a call if something good comes up.”

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