HYDERABAD: Driven by a sense of giving back to their motherland, a group of non-resident Indian doctors from the USA formed into a consortium to do their bit in the realms of education and health.

A doctor who believes in the Hippocratic oath,  Appa Rao Mukkamala went on to form the NRI Academy of Sceinces, with a motley group of NRI doctors from Andhra Pradesh who have carved a niche for themselves in the medical arena.

A sense of not being able to do something for the society has haunted and stirred us to venture into the fields of medicine and education, says Dr. Rao and his wife Dr. Sumathi, an equal partner in all of the couple’s endeavours.
The group had invested around Rs 150 crore for NRI Medical College and Hospital and the NRI Educational Society, a sister organisation, spent Rs. 20 crore for various colleges in several streams like engineering, intermediate colleges and Indiansprings schools.

The debt-equity ratio in all the investments is 1:2 (Rs. 50 crore of debt and Rs. 100 crore of equity). Another Rs. 150 crore investment is planned for expansion in the coming years.

The NRI Academy of Sciences is led by Dr Appa Rao Mukkamala, as its president, who figures in the 11-member Council on Legislation in the US, which oversees all laws related to medical and health. He is also a delegate on the 400-member American Medical Association.

 In an interview with andhrabusiness.com, Dr. Rao divulged details of the array of educational institutions in the medical and education sectors that the academy planned to roll out in the immediate future.

Your medical college in Chinakakani has made rapid strides and established itself as a top notch college with the state of the art facilities. Tell us more about your future plans?

Founded in 2003, the NRI Academy of Medical Sciences was established in Chinakakani in Guntur district on National Highway-5 which was our first venture in the education arena in the State with 150 admissions per year.

The 900-bed hospital is spread over an area of 11 lakh sq.ft and has general and superspecialty wards for cardiology, neurology, neurosurgery, paediatrics, orthopaedics among others.

We have around 300 doctors and staff including professors with a total of 1,500 employees at this college. The campus has a facility to house 700 students and is complete with quarters for our staff.

Nearly 70 per cent of our students who joined this academic year are girls. We have 10 to 12 NRI students from US also studying with us every year.

As many as 75 seats are given under 'A' category for those securing better ranks in the EAMCET in accordance with the allotment done by the NTR University of Health Sciences.

At least 20 per cent of the seats are given under the merit quota -- 'B' category -- but for a higher fee prescribed by the UHS. The management quota accounts for 30 per cent of the seats (including the NRI seats) which amounts to 45 seats out of the total 150.

The hospital successfully roped in a maximum number of cases under Rajiv Aarogyasri and figured among the top five in the State.

We started PG (post-graduate) courses with 63 seats in nine streams like general medicine, general surgery, paediatrics, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, psychiatry, radiology, pathology in 2009. We hope to introduce super-specialty courses in 2010 in cardio-thoracic surgery, neurology, urology, nephrology, with one or two seats in each specialty.

When will the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences in Jalandhar start its academic activity?

Our medical college in Jalandhar, the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences will be up and running this month. For this, we have taken buildings from the Punjab Government on lease basis for 99 years for Rs 130 crore.

The consortium (different from those in the NRI Academy of Medical Sciences. Only four doctors of NRI Academy are part of t he new consortium) has already paid Rs. 65 crore to the Government of Punjab in August and the last tranche of Rs. 65 crore will be paid this month.

The intake into the first year of MBBS will be 150.

We are also running a nursing college with a strength of 40 within the NRI Academy of Medical Sciences campus. Para-medical courses like radiology and lab technology with 10 and 15 seats respectively are being run there.

A cancer cure centre and another hospital with an investment of Rs 50 crore are also coming up within the medical college campus in Guntur district.

What is the investment that went into the engineering college in Guntur district? Tell us more about your plans to make it a top notch institution?

At least Rs. 9 crore has been spent on the NRI Engineering College so far. The college has branches in six specializations. We plan to make it a premier engineering college with campus placement facility for students. Two of our directors are established entrepreneurs in the US -- Mr. Rakesh Mahajan and Mr. Mehta. We have contacts with IITs.

We are tying up with Central Michigan University and the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia and plan to exchange students as part of our academic exchange programme.

Your Indian Springs school venture has been quite successful. Do you plan to expand it to other places across the State?

The school in Guntur currently has 5,000 students. We are planning to open branches in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam expand the strength of the students in the next fiscal year.

And the proposed expansion of junior colleges for intermediate education?

The strength of our colleges in Guntur, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam is around 16,000. We plan to open five new campuses in Kukatpally, Mehdipatnam, Dilsukhnagar, Tarnaka-Habsiguda areas in Hyderabad.

We have already invested Rs 18 crore and plan to invest Rs 15 crore more this year. We hope to rope in 9,000 students more and increase the strength to 25,000 students across the State.