The Hindu : Business : ITC plans to scale up e-choupal initiative

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Wednesday, Nov 28, 2007
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ITC plans to scale up e-choupal initiative

Special Correspondent

Mobile reach to be harnessed
Ties up with 110 companies

KOLKATA: ITC is planning to substantially scale up its e-choupal initiative within five years, by more than doubling the number of villages and bringing one crore farmers under its coverage.

M. Srinivas Rao, head, new initiatives, ITC, said the e-choupal project would fan out to 15 states against seven now, covering one lakh villages against 40,000 at present and bringing within its ambit ten million farmers against the 4.1 million farmer beneficiaries now.

Addressing a meeting organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, here he said cities like Hyderabad, Pune and Chandigarh would witness a scaling up of the choupal saagar initiative which offered multiple services under one roof for the rural population. This included a marketing platform, storefront for agri-equipment, personal consumption products, health centre, a food court and insurance counters.

To a question he indicated that technology platforms such as the mobile reach might be harnessed to improve services and scale up operations.

Mr. Rao said plans were afoot to start livestock management and water management and a pilot project titled Sunhera Kal had been launched in 26 districts in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan covering 2,000 villages.

The current basket had wheat, soybean, coffee, aquaculture and horticulture products.

While some of these go towards feeding the ITC Foods business, some like soy beans and coffee were exported.

Earlier, BCCI Secretary General, Khokan Mukherjee, said the kiosks that ITC had created through its e-choupal initiative provided the farmer with information about best farm practices, crop price trends and weather forecast. The kiosks, which are managed by sanchalaks, chosen from within the farming community, also helped a farmer order agricultural inputs offered by the participating companies. Mr. Rao said ITC had tied up with 110 companies.

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