After Andhra Pradesh, Telangana too opens medical devices park

Attracting medical device manufacturing units seems to be the new competitive race between the two Telugu States.

Within a year of the launch of a medical devices park at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana government has inaugurated what it claims to be the country’s biggest facility, in Medak district.

Spread over an area of 250 acres in Sultanpur, about 50 km from Hyderabad, activity at the Medical Devices Park got off to a start with Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao handing over land allocation to 14 industries. The park will have facilities for manufacturing, laboratory testing, prototyping and innovation as suggested by industrialists.

The State government will soon sign MoUs with China Medical City and a Korean medical city. “We will leverage the advantages of Hyderabad in the areas of pharma and life sciences to boost the development here,” KTR said at the launch on Saturday.

At present, India imports over 75 per cent of medical devices, which is expected to become a $50-billion industry by 2022. With local manufacturing, in addition to availability of the latest medical devices, costs will also come down.

The park is projected to generate about 4,000 jobs, and another 4,000 in indirect employment. The Minister urged industrialists present, including Parthasaradhi Reddy of Hetero Drugs, BVR Mohan Reddy of Cyient and Varaprasad Reddy of Sanofi Shantha Biotech, to ensure that semi-skilled and unskilled youth from the neighbourhood also get employment opportunities in the units.

In contrast, AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had laid the foundation stone to what he claims as the first-of-its-kind Medical Devices Manufacturing Park at Nadupuru near Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, in August 2016. He said Visakhapatnam will become a hub for manufacturing medical devices.

He projected ambitious investments up to ₹30,000 crore from 200-300 manufacturing units, with a job creation potential of 25,000. The State government floated a special purpose vehicle, Andhra Medical Tech Zone Limited, to execute the project . Around 226 acres of land was also allocated with clearances from the Union Health Ministry.

Strategically positioning the initiative under the ‘Make in India’ programme, Naidu said AP will be a pioneer in local manufacturing of hitech devices, pushing down costs in the healthcare industry as well as reducing dependency on imports from Europe, the US and China in the vital sector. He said the park will be start functioning in full swing within a year.

Naidu has been hard selling AP as an investment destination with his ‘Look East Policy’ during his visits to Japan, China and Korea with high-level industry delegations. He has also invited investors during his participation at the World Economic Forum and also during frequent meetings with top Indian corporates.