Reliance Foundation focuses on five core pillars of Rural Transformation, Education, Health, Urban Renewal and Arts, Culture & Heritage. It seeks to bring corporate systems and processes to social sector with an overall aim to create and support meaningful and innovative activities that address some of India's most pressing developmental challenges.

Reliance Foundation launched Reliance bij in October 2010. bij stands for 'Bharat India Jodo' and aims to bridge the gap between rural and urban India by strengthening sustainable agriculture practices amongst small and marginal farmers. Reliance bij today is present in 8 states and is set to expand to cover most of the agro-climatic zones of India. Reliance Foundation has embarked upon a new initiative called Information Services. Information Services aims at capacity building of farmers, fisher folk and micro-enterprises for better livelihood security. Information Services will provide timely advisories on climatic conditions, water and weather related risks, methods of handling new pests and diseases and sharing of best practices and better farming methods.

In FY 2011-12, Reliance Foundation and its associate institutions provided education to 15,000 children across 12 schools. Reliance Foundation is in the process of setting up Reliance Institute of Technology in Jamnagar and Reliance Polytechnic in Dwarka in partnership with the Gujarat government.

For promoting healthcare, Reliance Foundation is creating a world class tertiary care hospital in Mumbai. The hospital will incorporate a community outreach programme catering to health needs of the underprivileged. Reliance Drishti, an initiative of Reliance Foundation, working in association with National Association for the Blind (NAB), is committed to bring the gift of sight to the visually impaired and to improve their quality of life. Since its beginning in 2003, Reliance Drishti has conducted over 10,000 cornea transplants across India. An important milestone was achieved on March 19, 2012 when Reliance Drishti launched India's first registered national Braille newspaper in Hindi. This newspaper will bring the gift of information to over 25000 visually differently abled.

Reliance Foundation has also instituted "Real Heroes", an award that recognises and acknowledges ordinary Indians who are making a difference to people's lives. In its 5th edition held in March 2012, this annual felicitation honoured 24 unsung heroes of India. The efforts of these 24 Real Heroes, selected from across the country and working in diverse fields of Women Empowerment, Environment, Youth, Social Welfare, Health & Disability, Education & Children and Sports, have significantly contributed to the betterment of their communities.

Reliance Foundation acts as a catalyst for providing high quality education to all children in India through a three-pronged approach, which includes:

• Plugging the quality deficit in our primary classrooms through out-of-the-box ideas using technology, organizational design, human resource strategies and community engagement in partnership with organizations across the country.


• Designing a model for rural K12 schools of high quality that helps children in rural areas to gain access to better educational opportunities..


• Providing training in life and work skills, outside of the formal education system to adolescent girls and boys, to enable them to live a materially improved, more fulfilled life.

Reliance Foundation has launched an initiative to set up a world-class multidisciplinary university in Maharashtra. The Foundation is setting up the Reliance Institute of Technology in Jamnagar and the Reliance Polytechnic in Dwarka, in partnership with the Gujarat government. Reliance Foundation and its associate institutions provide education to 15,000 children across 12 schools.

Reliance Foundation aims to focus on making India's rapidly growing urban areas more amenable to a higher quality of life for all, including the low-income groups. The Foundation thus targets at:

• Improving the governance of local urban bodies through collaborations with city planners, architects, urban planning institutions, civic leaders and city municipalities.


• Shaping a campaign around green and open spaces in our cities, available to the general public, by working closely with international organizations, health bodies, local and state governments.


• Supporting the preparation of disaster management plans for our major metropolises. The Foundation aims to mobilize institutional, technical, and community level support to build systems and processes for averting and managing the impacts of large-scale natural disasters.

Reliance Foundation endeavours to protect and promote India's priceless heritage in ways that not only sustains but also makes art and culture accessible to the younger generations. This involves the following:

• Lending support to India's great living treasures - her artistes in music, dance, literature, painting and sculpture and creating institutions to ensure that their crafts are passed on and popularized to reach new audiences.


• Investing in protecting India's vast architectural heritage from decay, in particular, the lesser known monuments and structures in urban areas.


• Using technology to preserve India's traditional art, language, literature, architecture and music.

Reliance Foundation addresses the constraints of poor nutrition, high mortality rates and growing lifestyle diseases, with a special focus on rural areas and low-income settings. The Foundation's work mainly centres on the following:

• Creating and launching a decade-long campaign to end child malnutrition and under nutrition through an effective network of strategic partnerships with the government, industry, farmers, nutritionists, teachers and community workers.


• Providing managerial and technological expertise to identify and support innovations in basic health care delivery at the village and district levels. The service delivery models being created are based on principles of proven science, sound management and cutting edge technology.


• Investing systematically in the expansion of health care supply and training of health care professionals at the tertiary level.

Reliance is already engaged in many health initiatives including the HIV DOTS programme in Allahabad, Patalganga, Andhra Pradesh and Hazira. The ART centre at Hazira annually provides over 60,000 OPD consultations to HIV positive persons and DOT therapy for tuberculosis to nearly 400 patients. These efforts at Hazira have been recognized by the World Bank, UNAIDS and TERI. Reliance Foundation is expanding its heritage hospital, Dr. H N Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai by building a 19 storey, 800,000 sq. ft. world class health facility. Reliance Foundation, through its Reliance Drishti initiative, has successfully carried out 10,000 cornea transplant surgeries till date and has also launched India's first registered national Hindi newspaper in braille. The Foundation aims to work towards serving the healthcare needs of the country.

Reliance Foundation launched Reliance bij in October 2010. bij, which stands for 'Bharat India Jodo', aims to bridge the gap between rural and urban India and is driven by a vision "to make farming a first choice profession". Reliance bij seeks to achieve this by focusing on supporting marginalized farmers who are plagued by constraints of low farm productivity and increasing natural resource degradation..

Reliance bij is today present in over 350 villages in 9 states including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and is set to expand to cover most of the agro-climatic zones of India. Reliance bij:

• Operates at the village level, by organising villagers into Village Farmers' Association (VFA). VFA is a group of farmers who come together to plan, decide and act on a village development plan. So far 127 VFAs have been formed benefitting over 15000 farmers.


• Operates at the cluster level, by facilitating the formation of a Producer Company (PC), registered under the Company's Act 1956 (amended in 2001), which constitutes representatives from the VFAs. PC provides commercial and financial interface to the communities by way of aggregating their need for quick, cheaper and reliable access to variety of goods and services. Till date 8 PCs have been formed.


• Promotes sustainable agriculture practices to safeguard farmers against the volatility of monsoons and the markets. The farmers are educated in these sustainable practices through demonstration farms called DHARTI farms and Reliance Nutrition Garden (RNG). So far, 1400 DHARTI farms with 1100 farm ponds have been created, leading to over 5.5 billion litres of rain water harvesting and 700,000 cubic metres of soil conservation. Over 1000 RNG have also been formed providing secured balanced food to the rural families.

Reliance Foundation has embarked upon providing Information Services. Information Services aims at capacity building of farmers, fisher folk and micro-enterprises for better livelihood security. Information Services will provide timely advisories on climatic conditions, water and weather related risks, methods of handling pests and diseases and sharing of better farming methods and best practices.

Mrs. Nita M. Ambani is the Chairperson of the Reliance Foundation; Chairperson of the Dhirubhai Ambani International School; President of H N Hospital & Research Centre; and the Chairperson of IMG Reliance. She is on the Board of East India Hotels, the company that runs the Oberoi chain of hotels and which manages the Trident properties in India.

Over the past two decades, Nita Ambani has made significant contribution to the social sector, especially education, healthcare, environmental protection and sports.

Exemplifying her deep commitment to education, Nita Ambani provides leadership to 12 schools which are located at Jamnagar, Surat, Vadodara, Mumbai, Patalganga, Nagothane and Nagpur, catering to the educational needs of about 15,000 students. Under her leadership, in a very short period of time, the Dhirubhai Ambani International School has emerged as a center of excellence. She is on the Board of 'Teach For India', which is an NGO working towards ending educational inequity in the country. Nita Ambani is also the inspiring architect of the Mumbai Indians' Education For All initiative, which supports five partner NGOs: Akanksha, Nanhi Kali, Pratham, Teach For India and Ummeed. This initiative is impacting thousands of children.

She is the driving force behind the ecological development of the Jamnagar refinery site of Reliance.

In the area of healthcare, Nita Ambani directed the establishment of the Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital at Lodivali. She is the President of Sir H N Hospital in Mumbai and is currently leading its modernization, transforming it into a world-class, multi-specialty hospital.

In 2003, Nita Ambani flagged off 'Reliance Drishti', in collaboration with the National Association for the Blind (NAB), to work for the benefit of the visually differently abled. Reliance Drishti has till date carried out about 10,500 corneal grafting surgeries across India. Recently, it also launched 'Reliance Drishti' - India's first national braille newspaper in Hindi.

In 2008, Nita Ambani partnered with CNN-IBN to create "Real Heroes", an event to honour and reward the unsung heroes of India, who selflessly work at the grassroots level. So far, this initiative has recognized and rewarded over 120 real heroes of India.

In 2012, the All India Management Association bestowed the prestigious Corporate Citizen of the year award on Nita Ambani. She is ranked No.1 amongst women in 'India Today Power List 2012'. She was also felicitated with the Giants International Award for Excellence in Education and the Scroll of Honour Award by FICCI Ladies Organization.

Nita Ambani is truly the guiding spirit behind Reliance Foundation's ambitious vision of becoming the leading vehicle for social development, empowering the underprivileged and infusing social transformation in India.