He also said that, at present the Ayurvaid has a 15-bed hospital in Kochi & 60-bed one in Aluva & third one- a 25-bed facility is all set to be opened here. The few more hospitals are planned in the first phase over the next six- eight months it is also informed by Rajiv Vasudevan.

“We are looking at a mix of metros, tier-II cities and perhaps one tier-III city (for opening the five hospitals)”, Vasudevan told PTI here. “The goal is to have 40 hospitals (both company-owned and company-managed) in four years”.

Two-third of the proposed 40 hospitals would be 15-bed ones and the remaining 50-bed ones. “We will focus on bottom of the pyramid with 60 per cent of its capacity focused on poor patients”, he said.

Ayurvaid has received a Rs 4.5 crore funding from Acumen, one of the world’s largest fund for social ventures, with the latter picking up a minority state in the Ayurvaid, a division of Kerala First Health services Pvt Ltd.

He said that, this money is sufficient for expansion plans in the first phase, indicating that funds for the bigger roll-out thereafter would not be a problem. “There is active interest by a lot of people in the sector”, he said, also noting that establishing Ayurveda hospitals is not capital-intensive.