this story originally appeared in on oct 26 2013new delhi a newly formed industry body of top hospital chains and healthcare players nathealth has urged the government to allow business trusts and realestate investment trusts reit in healthcare space which they say would help the sector access funds the industry body modelled on the lines of nasscom in it space says this would enable healthcare players transform their business from assetheavy to assetlight model the us law defines reit as a corporation or trust or association that acts as an investment agent specialising in real estate or realestate mortgage individuals usually can invest in reits either by buying their shares directly on an open exchange or by investing in a mutual fund that specializes in public real estate it can help healthcare players monetise their assets better and enable business to focus on core expertise segregating infrastructure from operations says rana mehta leader healthcare practice pwc besides leading hospital chains such as apollo hospitals fortis healthcare max india manipal health enterprises and medanta the medicity the industry body also sees participation from medical technology diagnostic players and health insurance companies healthcare lobby group nathealth seeks reit investment raises financing concerns we are urging the government to set up a healthcare infrastructure fund on the lines of what it did for core infrastructure in the form of india infrastructure finance company ltd iifcl said anjan bose secretary general of nathealth which in its first two years would be led by the promoters of the two largest hospitals chains prathap reddy chairman apollo hospitals is the president while shivinder mohan singh executive vice president of fortis healthcareb is the vicepresident of nathealth for this fund to be meaningful and relevant it should have an initial corpus of atleast 15000 crore nathealth suggests which can be raised through bilateral investment treaties and longterm pension funds the funds governmentappointed management should handle investment allocation portfolio and fund management with a core mission to spur investment in healthcare through lead investment equity and long term debt and provide viability gap funding for projects aligned with the governments longterm healthcare goals additionally the industry body would work on making reimbursements in governmentrun schemes transparent and pricing viable feasible public private partnership models in healthcare said bose the growth of ppps in the roads sector has benefited from the transparent master guidelines and concession agreements with standard collateral and exit clauses that have enabled longterm funding while world health organization recommends that there should be atleast 35 hospital beds for every thousand people india currently has a dismal bed to population ratio at 13 per 1000 people to raise this to 17 by 2017 the country needs to add 650000 beds in next five years with an investment of 165000 crore according to a pwc estimate