The site has already been registered as a separate company, Reddy told The Financial Express though he did not specify whether the group's presence on satyamonline.com would be separated once healthstreet goes online.

``The aim is to be bigger and better than Healtheo/WebMD which is perhaps the largest health-related portal on the Internet as of today,'' he said.

Apollo Telemedicine, which at present operates as a division of the company, will be hived off as a separate entity Telemd India Ltd, in which the group chairman is not averse to even inviting foreign equity.

"We have been talking to a British telemedicine major which is keen to invest in the project and should be in a position to announce the deal later this month," he said refusing to divulge the name of the foreign party.

Apart from helping out in the implementation of the project within the country, the British tie-up will help in taking up telemedicine projects abroad, he added.

The Apollo Telemedicine project is being implemented at Aragonda village in Reddy's home district of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, with the 50-bed Apollo multi-speciality hospital which is hooked up to various super-speciality hospitals of the group in Chennai, Hyderbad and Dubai.

The centre, equipped with state-of-the-art telemedicine equipment such as digital stethoscope, trans-telephonic ECG systems, video-frame grabbers, digital cameras will provide referral services and second opinion on cases from remote centers. The project, which is to be a pilot exercise, is to be followed up with in five states linking 125 primary, 25 secondary and three tertiary centers within the next six months in Phase II implementation, Reddy said. The objective is to take it to 2600 primary and 500 secondary centers across the nation in the Phase III implementation stage, he added.