Manipal Health Systems Pvt. Ltd is planning an investment of Rs 1,500 crore for its pan India expansion. The investment is for a range of Greenfield and Brownfield projects. Currently, it has a total of 13 hospitals which includes three tertiary care super specialty hospitals, and 10 multi specialty hospitals.

The new investments will include three new projects in Bangalore. These are the 100 bed centre at Jayanagar in Bangalore. The second is a 300 bed facility next to its present hospital on Airport Road in Bangalore estimated at Rs 100 crore and the a 600 bed centre at the new airport at Devanahalli in the outskirts of Bangalore. While the Jayanagar centre will be commissioned in a month, the other two are in the blueprint phase requiring 18 months for completion of construction.

There are two new hospitals being operationalised at Salem in Tamil Nadu and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh. Efforts are also on to set up a facility at New Delhi but no further details were disclosed.

We are looking at pan India operations for which significant investments will be made, R Bail, chief operating officer, Manipal Health Systems told Pharmabiz.

The funding routes will be internal accruals, financial institutions including banks and Private equity (PE). There will also be indirect stakes made by PEs for which we will not be able to discuss now, stated the CEO, Manipal Health Systems.

Going by the increasing incidence of diseases and the awareness on the preventive care, there is a huge need of hospitals in the country. Manipal Group is also looking at acquiring or setting up new centres, he said.

The healthcare major with a turnover of Rs 600 crore and a 600 bed facility has raised Rs 900 million of equity from IDFC Private Equity Fund II, a fund managed by IDFC Private Equity.

Private Equity (PE) investors and Venture Capitalists (VC) are aggressively working out strategies to offer enticing funding offers to the healthcare sector. Between 2008 and 2010, the sector is expected to see investments of around Rs 15,000 crore. The funds will be from capital markets or PEs to set-up Greenfield and Brownfield projects, according to industry experts.

India already has an active fund provider base supported by the ICICI Ventures, one of the largest private-equities, which allocated $250 million for a dedicated healthcare fund through I-Ven Medicare. Others include IDFC, HSBC, JP Morgan Private Equity Fund, American International Group Inc. (AIG), Evolvence India Life Sciences Fund, George Soros's fund Quantum and BlueRidge.