Anil commits Rs 500 cr for Reliance GSM

Anil Ambani has committed an investment of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) in Reliance Telecom Ltd, the GSM (global system for mobile communication) arm of his ADAE group.

Relaince Telecom has two brands - Smart for prepaid and Reliance Mobile for post-paid customers.

Confirming the development, RTL sources said Ambani was instrumental in Reliance group's diversification in telecom eight years ago but he chose to stay away from the management of the company so far.

He took over as the chairman of the company on Saturday. The other members of the board are S P Shukla, Satish Sheth and B D Khurana.

Ambani's proposed investment in RTL follows his commitment to invest Rs 2,300 crore (Rs 23 billion) in Reliance Capital and Rs 1,500 crore (Rs 15 billion) in Reliance Energy, the financial services firm and power utility of his group, respectively.

So his total investment commitment to the group stands at Rs 4,300 crore (Rs 43 billion) now. RTL has a network spread across 13 states and a subscriber base of 1.5 million.

After taking over as Reliance Infocomm chairman, Anil Ambani had said he wanted to build India's most profitable GSM company over the next few years.e sources said RTL's revenue would go up to Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion) at the end of this financial year from last year's Rs 453 crore (Rs 4.53 billion).