Calling the surge of non-communicable diseases as biggest medical curse for India's people, Apollo Group of Hospitals Chairman Prathap. C Reddy on Tuesday said that the Niti Ayog will soon look into their ongoing programme of NCD screening to understand its actual burden in the country.

The prominent cardio surgeon said that they already held a meeting with the Niti Ayog on their ongoing screening of 170 hamlets in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which has projected that majority of them are pre-diabetic."Apollo's health care in collaboration with NGOs is screening 170 hamlets in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for NCDs. It will be one of the biggest challenges in healthcare as a majority of them are pre-diabetic. This will be a huge economic burden for the country if not realised soon," said Reddy during his interaction with reporters here.Asked if Apollo Healthcare will support the government on similar projects recently, he said: "We have given a presentation to the Niti Ayog and they have said that they want to look into our model."

Apollo Healthcare is expanding its market across the country with a total of 10,000 beds in all its hospitals, Reddy told IANS."To boost healthcare in the country the Apollo is also managing 200 Urban Primary Healthcare Centres in the country. All of them in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana," he added.Reddy, who started the Apollo Healthcare three decades ago, said that another reason why Indian healthcare was lagging behind was due to the disparity in the training of nurses and doctors.He said that taking the initiative for better training of health workers, Apollo is currently training 12,000 workers while in the coming years, this will rise to 50,000.

Asked about his opinion on the recent price cuts on stents and the future possibilities on syringes and canulas among others, Reddy agreed that the stents were being sold at a very high prices earlier, but said that if the government goes for reduction in other devices as well, then that will harm the quality of health care."If the price cut happens for every device then we will become a government controlled organisation. There should not be a cut on quality healthcare," he said.