NEW DELHI: India is fast becoming a popular medical tourism destination. Out of the 41,000 Iraqi tourists who visited the country in 2013, over 53 per cent came for medical treatment. Similarly, 45 per cent of Afghanis and 45 per cent of Nigerians came for similar reasons. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of foreign tourists coming to India for medical purposes doubled.

Encouraged by the response of foreign tourists visiting India for world-class medical treatment available here at much lower rates than abroad, the Indian government is setting up a separate body for medical tourism.

“We will soon be setting up a separate department in the ministry (of health) to act as coordinating office to provide for the medical tourists coming to India. It would include ministry officials and stakeholders like those from hospitals, hospitality industry, tour operators,” Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma told The Sunday Standard. He said the announcement in this regard would be made in the next few days.

“India is an affordable destination for people looking for best medical facilities at 1/8 cost of those available in some advanced countries. Even in countries like USA and England, Indian doctors are considered the best,” Sharma added. A Lok Sabha MP from Gautam Budh Nagar (Noida), Sharma is a trained doctor and chairman of Kailash Health Care, which runs a chain of super- and multi-speciality hospitals.

The celebration of International Yoga Day has brought the focus on the Indian system of medicine, particularly the alternative stream, which includes ayurveda and holistic wellness. Sharma says the Ministry of AYUSH and Health, too, would partner in the new initiative planned by his ministry.

Globally, medical value travel (MVT) is a $10.5 billion industry estimated to grow to $32.5 billion over the next five years at compound annual growth rate of 17.9 per cent. India certainly wants a lion’s share in this pie.

But India faces competition from better organised rivals. “Countries like USA, Turkey, Japan or smaller ones like Jordan, Croatia, Costa Rica and Malaysia are extremely organised in promoting themselves for medical travel,” says a recently released report by global consultancy firm KPMG. However, in contrast, India is fragmented in its approach as only individual hospitals have been promoting themselves as the hospital destinations,” the report stated.

In 2012, India received 1.7 lakh foreign tourists who came here for medical treatment, while Thailand received 25.30 lakh medical tourists, thus indicating what a better-planned approach can do. Popular medical tourism destinations in India are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, New Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

In a recent statement, Sharma said that the wellness industry was growing by 30 per cent in India. “No other sector is growing at a rate of 30 per cent.” He added, “Medical visa on ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) is already being provided in SAARC countries and would soon be extended further.”

During 2009, the number of foreign tourists was a little more than 51 lakh, out of which 2.2 per cent came for medical treatment. But by 2013, as medical treatment in India got more advanced and cheaper, the foreign tourist arrivals increased to around 70 lakh. Of this, 3.4 per cent visit for medical purposes.

There has been an influx of tourists from countries such as Iraq (53.5 per cent), Nigeria (42.4 per cent), Afghanistan (45.3 per cent) and Maldives (50.1 per cent), coming to India for medical purposes.