Anant Ambani Creates Vantara An Animal Sanctuary And Hospital In Jamnagar

Vantara or Star of the Forest, the spectacular new Ambani initiative, is inspired by the Sanatan Dharma concept of Jeev Seva.  Anant Ambani, its sponsor and prime mover, says there are specific animals associated with every deity in Sanatana Dharma, and all  creatures, great and small, are precious in Hinduism.

 Family patriarch Mukesh Ambani’s own deep and abiding interest in wild life and visiting sanctuaries in India and abroad with his family over the years, has sparked a grand new philanthropic project. That it is of of world class proportions is all the better, given the aspirations of the New India.

Vantara is Anant Ambani’s passion project, springing from a deep empathy for injured and abused animals. Anant is also a Director of Reliance Industries, his main day job. He is the younger son of Mukesh and Nita Ambani.

Anant also heads the Reliance Renewable Energy Project in Jamnagar designed to make Reliance Industries, heavily invested in petro-chemical refining and production, Net Zero Carbon by 2035.

Like other leading business groups such as Tata and Birla, Reliance has an increasing number of initiatives in the public space now. Other public initiatives include the running of an IPL cricket team, schools, hospitals, a spectacular centre for the arts and crafts, major sponsorship of temples and their betterment. Most of these activities are helmed by Chairman Mukesh Ambani, his wife Nita Ambani, their other two children and their growing families, who, like Anant, are prominent in the direction of Reliance Foundation as well.

The Ambanis have also created the world’s largest mango plantation in Jamnagar, a once semi-arid area in a backward part of Gujarat.

This latest initiative that is receiving global attention, is the brain child of Anant Ambani, who is also shortly getting married in Jamnagar. He prefers to live there these days, where he attends to Vantara and a plethora of other Reliance assignments. His bride to be, Radhika Merchant, is also keenly interested in the  Vantara project now.

Currently, Vantara is a sanctuary for over 200 injured elephants and other animal species such as leopards, rhinos and crocodiles. It will eventually breed  global endangered animal species to be released into the wild.

The project began on the ground in 2010, says Anant, with a 600 acre habitat for rescued elephants. It was started with special planting to replicate a space specially for the rescued pachyderms.

Later, a massive international quality elephant hospital, fully staffed with  specialists, including 50 expatriates, was built. It specialises in surgery, healing therapies, and rehabilitation. It has state-of-the art surgical equipment, robotic surgery facilities, giant hydraulic 7 ton lift platforms to raise the pachyderms. Anant visited over 30 ICU facilities abroad to formulate his ideas. The elephant hospital is equipped with portable x-ray and laser machines, a pharmacy, a pathology laboratory, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. It provides Multani-mitti and hot oil massages. There are state of the art elephant shelters in the near area, day and night enclosures, hydrotherapy pools, a large elephant jacuzzi for arthritis treatment. There is a 500 strong team of veterinarians, nutritionists, pathologists, biologists, physio-therapists.

 In addition, there is a separate hospital for the smaller animals, similarly equipped with an ICU, MRI, CT Scan, X-ray, ultrasound, endoscopy, dental scalars, lithotripsy, dialysis and OR1 technology. So far, there are 1,000 crocodiles, and 2,000 animals across 43 species inclusive of felines, herbivores and reptiles.

Both hospitals could become important academic and research facilities for animal ailments, bio diversity, conservation, rehabilitation. Vantara expects to collaborate with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and others. It already works in close coordination with the Forest and Wildlife Departments of Gujarat, various Indian zoos and sanctuaries, and the entire forestry and wildlife universe in India.  

The area dedicated to Vantara is 3,000 acres that could go up to 4,000 acres and incorporate a zoological park for visitors in due course.

Vantara is near the mostly Nita Ambani supervised and built city for Reliance employees. In the rural environs of Jamnagar, a dozen new temples have also been built in the surrounding villages recently, in a region famous for its old temples.

Jamnagar, as the site of the now green-belt Ambani petro-chemical empire, was started by the Ambani visionary and founder Dhirubhai Ambani. He grew up himself some 215 km away in the coastal village of Chorwad, his humble ancestral  home renovated and recently turned into a museum by son Mukesh.

Jamnagar and its facilities and installations have been vastly expanded by Mukesh Ambani. It hosts the Reliance crude oil refinery, the biggest and reportedly the most modern in the world, and other Reliance owned petro-chemical complexes. There are also state of the art shipping export infrastructure in the nearby port.  

Anant’s passion project Vantara gained further momentum during the Covid years, he says, when a new non-profit trust was born. Vantara is closed to visitors for the benefit of the rescued animals brought here, and of course, the wildlife and bio-diversity conservation research it engenders.

Vantara provides direct and indirect employment to over 10,000 people who grow the food for the elephants, cook for all the injured animals, feed them, heal them with allopathic and ayurvedic medicines and other therapies, befriend the abused animals, and keep them secure from any threats.

In time Vantara and its expertise aims to improve all the 150 plus animal sanctuaries and zoos in India in terms of training, capacity building, and animal care infrastructure. One day soon, with multiple international cooperation already in the works, Vantara could lead the world in its unique Sanatani Jeev Seva space.

(933 words)

February 28^th, 2024

For: Firstpost/News18.com

Gautam Mukherjee