Hindustan Latex Ltd (HLL), a mini ratna company under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, will develop the integrated medical devices and diagnostic manufacturing park at Chengalpet near Chennai, in collaboration with the Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS).
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between both the companies in the presence of health secretary Naresh Dayal here recently. The cost of infrastructure development of the park, coming up on public-private partnership basis, alone is expected to be around Rs 100 crore. It will have common facilities like sterilisation centre, testing and quality control facilities, waste disposal and logistics hub.
It is expected that the vibrant medical devices and equipment industry is projected to grow at 15 per cent annually from the present market turnover of Rs 2500 crore. The MediPark being set up by HLL will be a world class production facility for manufacture of medical devices, medical equipments and medical diagnostics, in over 330 acres of land near the CLTRI at Chengalpet, and shall comprise state of the art infrastructure for the production of these devices, with a view to achieve self reliance in the area of healthcare commodities.
IL&FS would identify the prospective investors, structure the project and provide engineering and financial services to the project. The project would be developed as a self-contained facility comprising physical, social and environmental infrastructure facilities, meeting the requirements of international markets. The common infrastructure facilities to be provided at the MediPark will be finalized through the Government by suitable policy interventions.
The Medipark will bring in latest technologies and systems in healthcare devices, equipments and diagnostics manufacturing and would have manufacturers of some of the key sub-segments in the medical devices and equipment sector like medical disposables/supplies, medical implants, diagnostics (including equipments for patient monitoring and rapid diagnostic kits for infectious diseases, and medical instruments and equipments (dental, ophthalmic, medical X-ray, alpha, beta, gamma ray equipments etc). MediPark is expected to provide a fillip to the medical industry in the country, which currently depends on imports for almost 60 per cent of its requirement of medical devices as well as provide an enabling environment for industries in the healthcare domain to set shop.