Anil commits Rs 500 cr more for Reliance GSM

Anil Ambani has committed an investment of Rs 500 crore in Reliance Telecom Ltd (RTL), the GSM (global system for mobile communication) arm of his ADAE group. RTL 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 in Reliance Capital and Rs 1,500 crore in Reliance Energy, the financial services firm and power utility of his group, respectively. So his total investment commitment to the group stood at Rs 4,300 crore 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.

The sources said RTL's revenue would go up to Rs 700 crore at the end of this financial year from last year's Rs 453 crore.