Mr Beaton was at the city chambers today to hand over £17,000 of pledged money to the appeal. There is still around £20,000 of pledged money due to go to the fund.

Mr Beaton became involved with the effort when he responded to the plea of a Sri Lankan living in Dundee asking for donations.

Ahilan Saravanamuthu is studying at Dundee University’s Wellcome Trust, and put out a plea for donations of medicine, clothes and cash.

However, he wasn’t ready for the response of the Dundee public, and was swamped with phone calls.

When Mr Beaton called to offer a cash donation, he realised Ahilan was struggling to cope with the sheer volume of calls, and suggested the two work together.

Mr Beaton said, “Ahilan didn’t know who the cheques should be made out to. He didn’t want them made out to himself, so I offered to lend my name to it as a recognised city businessman.

“We needed another couple of safe names on board, and we needed to be registered as charitable status.”

Mr Beaton met with Lord Provost John Letford and the Dundee Tsunami Appeal was formed, with Mr Letford as chairman and Mr Beaton as one of the trustees.

When the idea of a mobile clinic was touched on, it was originally suggested it be small enough to be driven with a car licence.

However, Mr Beaton admits that, “he doesn’t do things by halves” and the result is a 14-ton structure mounted on an 18-ton chassis.

The truck was bought second-hand in order to save money as it was felt ploughing desperately needed money into making the truck look nice was unnecessary.

The truck won’t cover a great deal of miles, and will operate around a 50-mile radius in the area of Trincomalee.

The clinic offers a seating area for around 26-patients, with TV and video facilities.

These will be used to show educational films about personal health and village cleanliness.

Abertay University have offered their help to animate the videos in a more comic and humorous style.

Complete with air conditioning, the clinic offers a nursing area, a dental room, two toilets and a space for lab technicians to carry out diagnostic testing.

Appeals are also being made for a second-hand motorbike to sit on the back of the truck, so doctors can visit people unable to make the trip to the clinic.

It is hoped the clinic will be officially presented to the area on April 14, which marks the start of the Sri Lankan new year.

Mr Beaton said, “It would be nice to have it all ready by then as hopefully a good start to a better year.

“It’s important to stress this is a marathon, not a sprint, and we are in it for the marathon.

“The Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) has announced it has more money than it can handle, but it’s important to point out that the people affected by the tsunami are still in desperate need of ongoing assistance.”

Lord Provost John Letford said, “There were a lot of projects to consider, including the mobile clinic. However, it was always going to be the preference to do this first.

“The fund had to be set up and unfortunately this takes time, so we’re not in Sri Lanka as early as we would have liked.

“It’s a fantastic effort by John and Ahilan and everyone involved in the whole project.”

Mr Letford said Dundee City Council was soon to ask its employees if they would consider contributing to a payroll scheme, whereby part of their wages would be donated to the appeal.

He said, “We’ve run similar things in the past, so I think it would be very popular indeed. This was always going to be a long-term thing about sustainability.”

Mr Beaton said he was hoping that putting the clinic on show would allow the public to see every pound that had gone into the effort, and would inspire more donations.