Sahara Group, Apollo discuss joint management of hospitals

Diversified business house Sahara Group is in talks with healthcare major Apollo Hospitals for jointly managing its proposed hospital chain, which the Lucknow-based company plans to set up across the country.

“Apollo is our technical collaborator for the Lucknow hospital project and now we are talking with them for the other hospitals also, but it is difficult to say whether they would help us in running the hospital chain in future,” said Sushanto Roy, Head, Infrastructure and Housing.

The Lucknow-based company plans to set up a chain of 217 secondary-care hospitals across the country and three super-speciality hospitals in the next 10 years, with an estimated investment of around Rs 6,000 crore.

The real estate arm of the conglomerate, Sahara Prime City (SPC), will be responsible for developing the healthcare business of the group.

Sahara Group has sent a proposal for the purpose to the Apollo Group and is now awaiting its reply.

The project management of Sahara Hospital in Lucknow was done by Apollo Global Projects and right now, we are in talks for operations management, Sahara Hospital Director (Medical Health) Dr H P Kumar said.

“We have sent the draft of Operation Management Agreement to Apollo Global Projects and are waiting for their reply,” he added. Apollo Global Projects, a part of Apollo Hospitals, provides consultancy services for operations and project management for hospitals.