The Hindu : Business : Apollo to enter rural, semi-urban areas

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Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008
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Apollo to enter rural, semi-urban areas

Special Correspondent

To promote Apollo Reach Hospitals

To invest
Rs. 1,000 crore
in two years
Plans health knowledge campus in Chittoor

CHENNAI: Apollo Hospitals group has drawn up a new vision that will see it make a foray into semi-urban and rural areas.

In the process, it is also seeking to erase the perceptions in the minds of a few that the group is ‘metro-centric’ in its approach.

The new vision is primarily aimed at “reaching out to touch a billion lives.”

In an interaction with The Hindu, Dr. Prathap C. Reddy, Chairman of the Group, said the group had touched the lives of over 17 million people since it came into being in a very small way in 1979. “How do we touch billion lives? It is a big challenge,” he said.

Dr. Reddy said the country required an addition of 100,000 beds every year over the next 10 years. This itself required an investment of a huge Rs. 80,000 crore.

The group, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, would promote Apollo Reach Hospitals for the semi-urban and rural areas. These would have a capacity of 100 beds each, which could be expanded to 200 beds. Dr. Reddy said the group was planning to set up 25 such hospitals in the next 24 months.

The Chairman said that the group was also looking at ESOPs (employee stock options) for doctors to be employed by Apollo Reach. The two-year plan for 25 hospitals would require an investment in excess of Rs. 1,000 crore.

Dr. Reddy said the goup would also set up the country’s first health knowledge campus at Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh.

The group had acquired 100 acres in Chittoor for this purpose. It had also initiated parleys with universities in the U.K. and Australia for collaborative arrangements.

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