Cholayil Sanjeevanam, a modern nature cure multiplex set up by the Chennai-based Cholayil group has signed a two year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dr S Senthillmohan, chairman / director of Kosmos Medical Tours Inc. Canada in a bid to promote medical tourism in India. Dr Senthillmohan will be directing patients to Cholayil Sanjeevanam in India for ayurvedic medical care from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Sanjeevanam will be offering treatment for diseases like asthma, diabetes, skin diseases, insomnia, hypertension etc as part of the package alongside the rejuvenation packages offered by it. "Dr Senthillmohan will be directing the foreign patients to Sanjeevnam and this would help in promoting medical tourism to a great extent. The two year MoU was signed on December 6 and it can be extended in the future too," said informed sources.

Cholayil is in receipt of enquiries for franchisee centres in countries like Dubai and the discussion for the same is on. An out-of-country centre needs to be extensively studied before commencement of the centre and that is why there is a delay in starting the centre, A V Anoop, director, Cholayil told Pharmabiz.

A most modern centre at Kerala is also being planned. As of now, in Kerala there are three Sanjeevanam centres - Thalassery, Taliparamba and Vadakara. According to Anoop the response for Sanjeevanam facilities received till date has been very encouraging especially among the local community.

In order to meet growing requirement and to have presence in-terms of manufacturing unit in north India, Cholayil Private Limited group which manufacturers the renowned Ayurvedic soap Medimix, will be setting up a manufacturing unit in Haridwar, Uttranchal on 5000 square meter of land. Semi mechanized production methods will be used in the new facility.

The land allotted in the State Industrial Development Corporation of Uttaranchal Ltd, DehraDun is planned to operate on most modern manufacturing procedures without affecting the basic principles of traditional soap making.

The building at the factory site shall be prefabricated structure with detailed layout of plant and machinery by following GMP norms. There shall be a most sophisticated in-house Quality Control (QC) laboratory for checking the Quality of the raw materials and finished goods. The total investment of the complete project shall be in-tune of Rs10 cr, Anoop said.

"The group aims to achieve a turnover of Rs 500 crore by 2010 and this wont be possible if we don't have a manufacturing unit outside Tamilnadu. If there had been exemption in Tamilnadu we would have used the money allocated for the new facility for some other project of ours," said Jayasankar E Variyar, vice president - Research and Development, Cholayil Pvt Ltd.

Cholayil also plans Cuticura Talc production at Haridwar. It is a third party operation and is being set up in association with M/s Padm Services. This shall be a state-of-art unit dedicated exclusively for production of Cuticura range of cosmetics. Also, manufacture of Cosmetic products is being planned at Haridwar.