Peninfo Desk: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari laid the foundation stone for the 2,000-bed Adani Arogya Mandir at Bengal Silicon Valley Tech Hub in New Town, in India’s West Bengal. Spread across 51.75 acres, the hospital will entail an investment of over Tk 5,160 crore (Rs 4,000 crore), to be executed by the Adani Foundation. Chief minister said the project would be developed as a hub for medical tourism, in which patients from neighbouring countries could also form a significant share.
The new hospital could also bring direct benefits to Bangladesh. Given Kolkata’s proximity to the Bangladesh border, a large number of Bangladeshi patients have long travelled there for advanced treatment, particularly for cancer, cardiac conditions and complex surgeries. With Adani Arogya Mandir set to prioritise cancer care in its first phase and to establish joint research facilities with institutions from the United States and Singapore, the hospital could emerge as a new, relatively closer option for Bangladeshi patients in the future.
According to the Adani Group, the healthcare centre will be able to admit over 200,000 inpatients a year and treat nearly 2 million outpatients, generating around 10,000 jobs. The first phase will focus on cancer care. Alongside the hospital, a Meditel and a Vishram Gruh will be built to accommodate relatives of patients. The campus will also include a medical college, a college of nursing and a research ecosystem, with Mayo Clinic Global Consulting from the United States and Singapore’s SingHealth as partners for research in genomics, precision medicine and artificial intelligence.
Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani said 1,000 of the hospital’s 2,000 beds would be reserved for economically weaker sections of society, who would be eligible for benefits under state and central health insurance schemes.
Gautam Adani said 1,000 of the hospital’s 2,000 beds would be set aside for economically disadvantaged communities. Drawing a comparison with Mundra port in Gujarat, he described West Bengal as the Group’s new “karmabhoomi” in eastern India. He announced that the Group would invest over Tk 1 lakh 29 thousand crore (Rs 1 lakh crore) in the state by 2035 across sectors including ports, transport infrastructure, renewable energy, power generation and transmission, roads, bridges and ropeways, green cement, and large-scale data centres.
Alongside development, Adani stressed the importance of preserving Bengal’s heritage, art and culture, under which two memorandums of understanding were signed — for the restoration of the historic Writers’ Building and the revitalisation of Kumartuli Ghat — along with an initiative to showcase Kolkata’s Durga Puja art and culture on the global stage through “Adani Pujo Preview.”
The Adani Group has long-standing ties with Bangladesh as well. Its power plant at Godda in India’s Jharkhand state has been supplying electricity to Bangladesh for years under a 25-year agreement signed in 2017, making it currently the largest source of India’s electricity exports to Bangladesh.
Operating since 1996, the Adani Foundation currently works in 7,247 villages across 22 states of India in education, health, nutrition and livelihoods, benefiting nearly 13.3 million people.
Peninfo/Dhaka/262.09.26/11:35pm