Indian Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is critically ill and battling for his life at a hospital in the southern city of Chennai, sources said Tuesday.

The 67-year-old former chief minister of the western Indian state of Maharashtra is suffering from a serious liver ailment and multiple organ failure, and is in the intensive care unit at the Global Hospital in Chennai, the sources said, adding that his survival chances are minimal as he is on life support machine.

Deshmukh's son and Bollywood actor Riteish has said that he would donate part of his kidney to his father, said a hospital doctor on condition of anonymity.

He may be taken abroad for the liver transplant, the sources said.