Mumbai, Nov 15 (TNN): The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has finally made the SevenHills Hospital in Andheri toe its line.

The hospital, which was built on a public-private partnership (PPP) model involving the BMC and a group based in south India, has agreed to comply with the BMC conditions of keeping 20% beds for civic patients and providing medicines at municipal rates. The civic body will soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the hospital management.

SevenHills Hospital began functioning in 2010, but has not yet signed an MoU with the BMC. The BMC had given a plot of land in Marol for the 1,500-bedded hospital, but the lack of an agreement was hampering its efforts to provide medical services to economically backward patients.

The matter reached the Bombay high court and lingered there for three years. Then, two months ago, the Seven Hills Hospital management decided to backtrack and accept BMC's conditions.

BMC officials said they were preparing the MoU. "A new clause will be added saying that the civic body has the powers to take over the hospital if it violates any condition," said Santosh Muzumdar, executive engineer of PPP Promotion Department.

The Seven Hills hospital management had agreed to almost all the conditions put forth by the civic body, the only bone of contention remaining was the 20 per cent quota and provision of medicines at free of cost or as per the BMC hospital scheduled concessional rates. The hospital had claimed that it cannot offer the second demand because medicines given by it are branded and costly, while BMC's are generic medicines.

The Seven Hills Hospital, inaugurated by the then President Pratibha Patil on July 3, 2010, has been mired in controversies. The BMC has allotted a 17-acre plot at Marol-Maroshi to the Hyderabad-based Seven Hills Hospital, which has set up there one of Asia's largest hospitals - a 1,500-bed super-speciality hospital. The BMC had offered the plot to Seven Hills after the closure of a cancer hospital there.