The A.P. Medtech Zone (AMTZ), touted as India’s largest medical devices manufacturing park, is hogging the limelight for its contribution to the fight against COVID-19 pandemic due to its success in developing rapid testing kits. Further, it is gearing up to launch manufacturing of ventilators from mid-April.
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AMTZ, which was in the eye of the storm over allegations in the finalisation of various bids, has weathered all to carve a niche for itself in bringing investors to Visakhapatnam.
Located in an area of 270 acres at Nadupur of Pedagantyada mandal, a few km away from the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and Gangavaram Port, the zone, for which stone had been laid in 2016, is poised to reduce the import dependence and slash cost of healthcare by an estimated 40 to 50%.
The zone will manufacture rapid testing kits at the rate of 2,000 per day and later scale it up. It will begin manufacturing 3,000 ventilators from April 15 and increase it to 6,000 from the subsequent months.
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‘Make in India’ initiative
The park has already attracted a good number of investors. The government is also encouraging investments under the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
AMTZ, a State government enterprise, once completed will become the country’s first comprehensive medical devices park with R&D, testing labs and provision for acceleration for startups.
It houses the Bio Valley Council of India, which encourages startups to make healthcare affordable, and the Kalam Institute of Health Technology set up by the Union government for taking up focused research on medical technologies, bringing those involved in R&D, industry, policy-makers and knowledge repositories under a common platform.