Her father Shiv Nadar, 68, who had a rural upbringing in southern India, set up Hindustan Computers with partners in 1976 with an investment of about $20,000. He owns 62 percent of software maker HCL Technologies and 50 percent of computer- hardware distributor HCL Infosystems. His net worth is $11.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has committed more than 10 percent of his wealth to philanthropy.
“Health clinics require someone with deep pockets,” said Charu Sehgal, a Mumbai-based senior director at the local unit of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLC. “It will have to be a volume game.”
India had 0.7 doctors for every 1,000 citizens in 2012, according to the World Health Organization, while in Ukraine the ratio was 3.5 and 7.2 in Monaco.
Nadar, who is also the chief executive officer of the unlisted holding company HCL Corporation Ltd., plans to use the computer technology expertise of the group firms to connect her clinics, she said.
Key Lever
“Information technology is something we know very well, she said. ‘‘It will be a key lever and will come in handy.’’
Technology can help cut costs in a developing country like India by linking several clinics to a specialist doctor, Deloitte’s Sehgal said.
The outlook for health-care demand in India has fueled a rally in the stocks of health-care providers. Shares of the Chennai-based Apollo Hospitals, with 10,000 beds across 61 hospitals, rose 107 percent since the end of 2010. A 16-member S&P BSE Healthcare index has advanced 55 percent during this period, compared with the 11 percent gain in the broader S&P BSE 500 index.
HCL Technologies shares slipped 0.4 percent today in Mumbai to 1,405.80 rupees.
The diseases HCL Avitas seeks to treat are on the rise in the country. India has 65.1 million diabetes patients compared with 50.8 million in 2010 with doctors treating obese children as young as 13 years, according to International Diabetes Federation.