The fact that Bangalore, the IT capital of the country, is also becoming a hot destination for health care industry, is once again reaffirmed by the expansion plan of Kualalampur, Malaysia based health care company Columbia Asia.

The company which came to India through the 100 per cent FDI route, started their first hospital at Hebbal, on the outskirts of Bangalore in 2004. Now it is planning to set up three more in the city and one in Mysore.

The first hospital at Hebbal, Columbia Asia Medical Centre, is a 90-bed multi disciplinary community hospital that has the facility to treat all kinds of ailments except interventional cardiology and interventional radiation therapy in oncology.

Talking to Deccan Herald, Columbia Asia in India Chief Executive Officer Tufan Ghosh, said “Our main objective is to cater to the medical needs of middle class and emerging middle class people. We prefer to locate our hospitals away from city centres, in a place easily accessible by wide roads.” The company initially invested US$8 million in India.

Having tested the Indian market, Columbia Asia has now drawn up an aggressive plan for expansion. By end of current financial year its will set up two community hospitals of 90 bed each, like the one in Hebbal, at Saltlake in Kolkata and another Palam Vihar, New Delhi. It is also in process of setting up a 200 bed super speciality, referral hospital at Yeshwantpur, Bangalore. Next on the anvil are two more 90-bed hospitals in Bangalore East and South.

These and the Hebbal hospital, will work as hub-and-spoke model where super speciality hospital will work as hub. “When we set up hospitals in other metros at the next stage, we will follow the Bangalore model everywhere,” Mr Ghosh said. Columbia Asia is expected to invest another $65 million for current expansion but Mr Ghosh refused disclose exact figure.