Kolkata: Billionaire Indian entrepreneur Mukesh Ambani has announced a donation of $ 2 million to the health programmes of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, made the announcement at the Federation's General Assembly currently taking place in Geneva, a RIL spokesperson said.

His support was inspired by the effectiveness of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in their response to the Gujarat earthquake two years ago which killed over 20,000 people, Ambani, who chairs the Board of Directors for the Foundation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said.

Urging business corporations to "go beyond financial equity to building social equity", Ambani also pledged to put the six million-subscriber base of his IT company, Reliance Infocomm, at the service of the Red Cross in India to access millions of citizens and to mobilise their support, the spokesperson said in a release today (Nov 30, 2003).

"Our target is to raise $ 25 million for the Federation's programmes over the next five years," Ambani was quoted by the spokesperson as saying.

Information Technology, he said, offered several opportunities to raise resources, co-ordinate response efforts and alleviate human suffering.

Ambani stressed that no one agency could respond to all humanitarian needs in a world where one billion people lived in chronic hunger and three billion did not have access to safe water.

Against this backdrop, he said, the private sector should be encouraged to improve the lives of the vulnerable in all communities.

He said that he saw Reliance as representing "the hopes of millions of Indians for economic growth and development" through its businesses in oil and gas, petrochemicals, polyester, plastics, power, life sciences and Information Technology with group revenues adding up to $ 17 billion annually.

PTI