Anant Ambani’s Vantara programme: Over 200 elephants, 1000 crocodiles, 3000 acres of land and more

Anant Ambani, son of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, will soon tie knots with his fiance Radhika Merchant. Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant pre-wedding festivities will soon begin in Gujarat’s Jamnagar and ahead of the massive event, Mukesh Ambani’s younger son has announced a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation programme named Vantara. Since the announcement of the grand project, videos of Anant Ambani and the Vantara rehabilitation centre have been doing rounds on social media platforms. While many are confusing it for an animal hospital, a few think that Vantara is a zoo. To give you a better clarity, here’s everything we know about Anant Ambani’s new Vantara programme.

Vantara means Star of the Forest. It is not a zoo or an animal hospital specifically but an umbrella initiative to focus on rescue, treatment, care and rehabilitation of injured, abused and threatened animals, both in India and abroad. Situated within the lush Green Belt of Reliance’s Jamnagar Refinery Complex in Gujarat, Vantara is spread over 3000 acres, meticulously designed to provide a nurturing haven for rescued species to flourish. 

The facility includes shelters, scientifically designed day and night enclosures, hydrotherapy pools, water bodies and a large elephant jacuzzi for treating arthritis in Elephants. It is home to over 200 Elephants who are cared for round-the-clock by a specialized and trained staff of over 500 people including vets, biologists, pathologists, nutritionists and naturalists. The Centre has a special kitchen of over 14000 square feet dedicated to preparing a curated diet for each elephant keeping in mind their most necessary physical needs including their oral health.

For other wild animals that have been deployed in circuses or congested zoos, a Rescue and Rehabilitation centre of over 650 acres within the 3000 acre premises has been created where animals from distressed and dangerous environments from India and all over the world are rescued and housed in state-of-the-art large enclosures and shelters.

With a staff strength of about 2100+, the rescue and rehabilitation Centre has rescued about 200 leopards from all over India which have suffered injuries in road accidents or man-wild conflicts. It has rescued over 1000 crocodiles from a severely overcrowded and congested facility in Tamil Nadu. It has rescued animals from hunting lodges in Africa, animals under threat of euthanasia in Slovakia, severely distressed animals from facilities in Mexico.

The Centre has a 1 Lakh square foot hospital & medical research centre. The hospital and research centre possess the most advanced technology with an ICU, MRI, CT scan, X-ray, ultrasound, endoscopy, dental scalar, lithotripsy, dialysis, OR1 technology that enables live video conferences for surgeries and blood plasma separator. Over 2000+ animals across 43 species are under the care of the Rescue & Rehabilitation Centre.

For about 7 endangered species of Indian as well as foreign animals the Centre has started conservation breeding programs with the objective of having a viable reserve population to repopulate the populations of endangered species in their native habitats to save them from extinction.