The expectations from the United Progressive Alliance government keep rising by the day, and there is near unanimity about the urgent need to reform and increase spending on social infrastructure sectors including education and healthcare.
The next few days and months will give some indication of the vision, resolve and ability of the government to give a boost to social infrastructure.
However, there is one sector that has the potential to become one of the biggest economic growth drivers for the country, provided the government, industry and entrepreneurs take cognisance of the same.
That sector is 'healthcare'. In addition to textiles and IT, this is one sector that has an incredible opportunity to grow exponentially, riding both on the domestic 'demand' as well as the international market opportunity.
With a population of 1.15 billion, and growing at almost 18 million per year, India will be the most populous nation by 2030 with as many as 1.4 billion or more inhabitants.
Against the current strength of about 750,000 hospital beds (and those too highly concentrated in the major urban centres), India will need to add at least two million beds in the next 20 years even if were to target a very modest two-beds-per-1,000-citizens ratio. Ideally, it needs closer to four beds per 1,000 people keeping in mind the sheer geographical spread of the country and the varied population density across this geography.
Even at a modest Rs 40 lakh (Rs 4 million) direct investment per bed, India will need to invest a minimum of Rs 800,000 crore (Rs 8,000 billion) over the next 20 years to establish two million new beds, and as much as Rs 20,00,000 crore (over $400 billion) if it wishes to come closer to the four-beds-per-1,000-people norm.
At that time, the sector will see a direct employment of over 25 million, and an indirect employment of as many as 75-100 million. Of these, as many as 2.5 to 3 million will be the number of qualified doctors alone, and another five-six million the nursing staff.
At about three million functioning beds by 2030, the revenues of healthcare service providers alone would be over $400 billion.
Two million additional beds will require almost two billion square feet of additional constructed space providing a huge fillip to the construction sector, while the business opportunity for medical equipment suppliers will be in excess of $100-125 billion.
Besides this revenue and employment potential, one must consider the demographic changes taking place outside India and the state of healthcare in developed countries. In demographic terms, as developed countries age steadily over the coming decades, healthcare spending will see a very sustained rise.
Ironically, with stagnant or declining birth rates, developed countries will face an unprecedented shortfall of young manpower, and hence their need for trained manpower from younger, more populous countries will only increase.
India, provided it makes the requisite investment in developing healthcare manpower including doctors, nurses, technicians, professionals specialised in healthcare IT applications, and healthcare administrators (to list some of the profiles), can become the world's leading and most respected supplier of healthcare talent and services, delivered both outside India and within, potentially even surpassing the financial and branding contribution of the IT sector to the nation.
Further, if a 'nano' approach is applied to the development of medical equipment, consumables, hospital furniture, and hospital building construction typologies and materials, India can not only dramatically reduce the cost of establishing and delivering healthcare services in India but also create exciting opportunities of expanding India's exports basket to include such (low-cost, high-performance) manufactured products for the worldwide healthcare industry.
India has all the advantages it needs to be one of the world leaders in this space including a very large domestic market, availability of engineering and IT talent pool, and labour costs that can be sustained at globally competitive levels for decades.
Hopefully, the prime minister and his Cabinet (not just the ministry of health & family welfare) and Indian business will take out some time to fully understand this incredible potential and apply their collective minds to develop the same.
