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Traditionally, social infrastructure is regarded as an activity under the Government's realm of operations. Never before, has this sector crossed a private investor's radar. With the Infrastructure industry becoming the talk of the 'corporate town', the neglected social infrastructure sector has emerged as a significant untapped opportunity. Prime, within the virgin territory of social infrastructure, are the healthcare and education sectors. Speaking at IVCJ's Conference on Private Equity and Infrastructure, on 26th November, 2007 at J. W Marriott, Mumbai, Mr. Alok Bhargava, Executive Director, IL&FS Financial Services Ltd. said, 'The education sector has witnessed private sector participation in across schools, colleges, coaching classes and even Universities. However, there is still limited private sector participation in this area.' This is a pointer towards the fact that while education infrastructure has enticed investors to some extent, it is no where near what is expected to revolutionalise this segment.
Healthcare Infrastructure, too, is a sector that is envisaged as a huge untapped market. As a speaker at the conference, Mr. Zubin Daruwala, Director, Business Development, Johnson & Johnson Medical divulged, 'The real dark horses in the healthcare space are Healthcare Delivery, Health Tourism, BPOs, KPOs, Medical Devices, Pharma and Training & Education.' Based on a study by Frost & Sullivan, the healthcare infrastructure, alone, is a US$ 5 billion opportunity.
Watch out for a full story on the opportunities within the Social Infrastructure space in the forthcoming issue of IVCJ's Private Equity Journal for India. Log on to www.vcindia.com to subscribe to the Journal.
(Full story to be covered up in the upcoming edition of IVCJ's Private Equity Journal for India)
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