HSCC All Set for Building Smart Health Infrastructure in Goa

Gyanesh Pandey

Gyanesh Pandey, Chairman and Managing Director, HSCC (India) Limited, speaks about the organisation’s engagement in Goa for building an effective healthcare ecosystem in an interview with Souvik Goswami of Elets News Network (ENN).

What kind of smart healthcare technologies are you using in your projects?

Smart healthcare means that there are no physical barriers in getting doctor’s appointment, accessing diagnostics test results, keeping the patient records and availing the medical treatment. Presently, we are ensuring that the patient should visit the hospital to receive all the treatments without any problem with the help of smart techniques, which we call “smart healthcare.”

Smart healthcare also means that ICT is used to book appointments from home and every medical record is available on a chip to allow you to access it from anywhere in the world. It should also ensure that the entire history of a patient is available on the mobile. The operation theatres should be equipped to take advice from other experts present anywhere in the world in real time.

What initiatives should be taken by the Government of Goa to provide good healthcare facilities to its citizens?

The healthcare infrastructure in Goa needs more aggressive improvement in healthcare sector considering large numbers of visitors in Goa. We have discussed this matter with the State government. The officials have agreed to add infrastructure to their existing healthcare system. So, our proposal for PMSSY Goa, from the Central Government, under which 200 beds was increased to 500 beds.

The other healthcare infrastructure improvement suggested to them was that we should have more and more medi-clinics spread all over Goa as people from all over the world come to Goa throughout the year.

When people visit a new place, it is likely that they may face some medical problems. Therefore, they need more and more medi-clinics that are connected to their secondary level and tertiary level care centres so that thousands of people reaching Goa should be able to get proper and advanced medical treatment.

How can HSCC engage more with Goa?

We have taken up the first project in Goa. The land issue is resolved. Very soon we’ll be starting the work on a 500-bed hospital in the existing medical college. But at the same time, I would suggest they should immediately conduct a study on their healthcare needs and how to strengthen their healthcare infrastructure. This can be taken up in phases, starting from medi-clinics.

In Mauritius, they have very good medi-clinics serving an area of around 2-3 km around it. These clinics are very neat and clean and are serving local areas. Just like Mauritius, Goa is a tourist place with tourism as the main source of income. The State, therefore, should focus on tourists and add more and more health facilities keeping that in mind. Having good health facilities will attract more and more tourists to Goa and they can develop medical tourism as well.

The Government should engage a consultant at least to suggest them the best possible way of dealing with healthcare infrastructure of Goa.

As you have given the example of Mauritius, please shed some light on HSCC’s operations there.

In the last two years, we were trying to get more works outside India. We have been working in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. We had been trying to get some work from African countries directly because we had done enough projects in India and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries in the last 35 years. I always thought that our knowledge and experience in developing healthcare infrastructure should spread in all those countries too.

Initially, we were assigned the first project. Over time they decided to give us two more projects. Recently, when we visited Mauritius, the Government of Mauritius asked us to develop the entire healthcare infrastructure project of their country. This happened only because of knowledge-sharing with them through regular meetings and communication on what all HSCC can do. They saw our credentials and the quality of the projects we have completed in the past. Now we have to improve their entire healthcare infrastructure starting from mediclinics, which are like the Primary Health Centres in our country, to tertiary and top medical care facilities like Victoria Hospital that is similar to AIIMS in our country.

Recently there have been some merger talks going on with HSCC. What is your vision for HSCC in the next few years in terms of its financial growth?

The merger talks could happen because HSCC has grown tremendously in the past five years. That is one of the reasons that a company like HSCC has been identified for mergers. HSCC is a Schedule C company and it had less than 100 employees a few years back.

The turnover of the company was less than 33 crores when I joined the company. So, nobody could think that HSCC can also be one of the big players and can be merged with some other company.

But in the last five years, HSCC has started working in more than 100 places and we have achieved a CAGR of 33 per cent, which looks almost impossible for any PSU or private organisation. Our presence is in every small town in India. Considering all these things, HSCC was also indetified.

This company has developed a great skill in developing healthcare infrastructure and it should always be recognised for building quality healthcare infrastructure in India. HSCC should be further strengthened so that the skills acquired in its 35 years of existence can be retained and utilised for government public and private healthcare sector in India and abroad.

Our work speaks for itself. We don’t believe in advertisements. The merger should happen as per the government’s plan, but the capability, strength and the technical competence of this company should be retained.

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