The Adani Group has begun work on a 2,000-bed hospital and medical college in New Town after Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari laid the foundation stone for the Rs 4,000-crore project, which will reserve half its beds for economically weaker patients treated free under state and central health insurance schemes.
The Adani Arogya Mandir, the infrastructure group’s first major venture in Bengal, will be built on a 51.75-acre campus. Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani said the institution would be a not-for-profit medical facility with advanced care, research and medical education facilities.
“The Adani Arogya Mandir will be a world-class, not-for-profit medical institution that will have 2,000 beds — with a thousand beds catering to the economically weaker sections of society, eligible under state and central health insurance schemes,” Adani said at the launch ceremony.
According to an Adani Group spokesperson, the campus is expected to handle more than 2 lakh inpatients and over 20 lakh outpatients annually. It will include a medical college with an annual intake of 150 undergraduate and more than 100 postgraduate students, along with a nursing college and an institution for allied healthcare and paramedical education.
Residential facilities for healthcare professionals and their families are also planned within the campus. The hospital will initially focus on cancer care and other advanced tertiary and highly specialised services. Its proposed research facilities will eventually cover genomics, precision medicine, biomedical informatics, artificial intelligence, clinical trials, molecular sciences and other areas of applied biomedical research.
The Adani Foundation has engaged Mayo Clinic Global Consulting in the United States and Singapore’s SingHealth to provide global expertise for the institution. Chief secretary Manoj Agarwal said the hospital was expected to become operational in three years.
Agarwal said the project could reduce the number of patients from Bengal travelling to other states and countries for treatment. He said many patients from the state currently travel to Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad and Gurugram for specialised procedures, while some also travel to Singapore for health check-ups.
He said Bengal had approximately 10,000 private-sector tertiary-care beds and between 30,000 and 40,000 government-sector beds, but continued to face a shortage. Agarwal also referred to the state’s debt of ₹9 lakh crore and the limits on government spending, while describing the new institution as an addition to the state’s healthcare capacity.
Adhikari described the project as the first step towards creating an integrated healthcare city in New Town. He said the campus would generate ancillary units, support medical tourism and create employment. Gautam Adani said the project was expected to generate more than 10,000 jobs across Bengal’s healthcare ecosystem.
The chief minister said the project moved from an initial proposal to the foundation ceremony within two months after Karan Adani met him at Nabanna following the formation of his government. The proposed campus is expected to combine hospital services, medical education, research, professional housing and allied healthcare training in one New Town development.
The hospital, college and research facilities are scheduled to be completed for operations within three years, according to the chief secretary’s statement at the launch.
