Apollo Hospitals plans to revive its proposed hospital project in Batanagar near Budge Budge and is scouting for additional sites in Calcutta, the group’s founder-chairman Prathap C. Reddy said. The expansion would add to the private healthcare infrastructure of a city where Apollo currently operates four facilities.
Reddy said the group was looking for land in several cities, including Calcutta, to build new healthcare facilities. He said Apollo had sufficient funds for its immediate hospital expansion plans and was not seeking venture capital for the proposed projects.
“We are planning to build a hospital there. Also, we are looking for sites to build more hospitals, including Calcutta,” Reddy said, referring to the Batanagar project and the search for further locations. The proposed Batanagar facility is expected to be located near Budge Budge, although Apollo has not disclosed the project’s land area, investment, bed capacity, construction schedule or commissioning date.
Apollo currently has four facilities in Calcutta, including one along EM Bypass and another in Narendrapur. The company’s plans would therefore extend its existing presence beyond its current locations, but the available announcement does not specify whether the new facilities would be general hospitals, specialised centres or a combination of healthcare services.
Reddy said capital remained important for the growth of India’s private healthcare sector because hospitals required funds to acquire modern technology, build facilities, support research and undertake future expansion. He also linked hospital investment to corporate social responsibility initiatives and innovation, while maintaining that Apollo did not presently need venture capital to finance its planned projects.
The proposed expansion comes as Reddy highlighted the changing health burden faced by India. He said non-communicable diseases, including hypertension, high blood sugar and cancer, were rising, while obesity and mental illness had emerged as additional challenges. He advocated preventive healthcare focused on identifying and addressing risk factors before diseases develop.
Reddy made the remarks in Aragonda in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, where Apollo Hospitals and the Apollo Foundation operate Total Health, a rural integrated community development programme. He was attending an event marking 1,000 total knee replacement surgeries carried out under the programme since 2000.
Reflecting on the development of healthcare infrastructure in India, Reddy said facilities had once been scarce and that some patients had been sent abroad for treatment. He said the import duty on medical equipment had earlier been as high as 320 per cent. He also said treatment outcomes were more important than facility numbers and claimed that India’s healthcare standards were now at par with those of the United States.
Apollo has not announced a detailed implementation timetable for the Batanagar hospital or identified the additional Calcutta sites under consideration. The next significant milestones will be the finalisation of land, project details and the construction schedule.
