Roshni Nadar Malhotra, the daughter of Indian billionaire Shiv Nadar, is stepping out of her father’s shadow to make a foray into health care. She’s using her family’s computer business as a springboard.
The 33-year-old plans to spend 10 billion rupees ($168 million) to build a network of health clinics to treat acute and chronic ailments including diabetes, asthma, stomach and skin conditions, she said in an interview. Her venture will start with 50 centers in and around New Delhi before expanding to small towns, the only offspring of the founder of HCL Technologies Ltd. and HCL Infosystems Ltd. said.
“The focus is on providing outpatient care, something that can fill in for the disappearing tradition of family physicians,” Nadar said from her office in the outskirts of the nation’s capital. “We aren’t building hospitals. Not yet.”
Nadar is seeking to tap a market for primary care in the second most-populous country where state delivery is poor or inadequate, while private hospitals run by Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd. and Fortis Healthcare Ltd. are unaffordable to a majority. Health-care spending in India may surge sevenfold to $280 billion in the decade to 2020, a study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry shows.
The effort of HCL Avitas, as the venture is known, will be to provide a cheaper alternative for those wanting treatment for the common cold, flu, chest congestion and other conditions, Nadar said. A single appointment at a private hospital in Mumbai might cost $20, compared with $5 at an HCL Avitas facility.
Minor Ailments
Primary health care that can cut costs is especially vital in India, where the World Bank says more than two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day and 86 percent of health- care spending is paid out of pocket by individuals with no insurance.
“Large health-care companies are mostly focusing on multi- specialty, high-end care hospitals,” Sriram Rathi, health-care analyst at Mumbai-based brokerage Anand Rathi Securities Pvt., said by telephone on May 13. “This forces patients into hospitals for even the most minor ailments. Health clinics can address that need gap.”
The venture, being managed by Nadar’s husband Shikhar Malhotra, has a tie-up with Baltimore, U.S.-based Johns Hopkins Medicine International to help train staff and set up processes within the clinics.
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