Company: ITC Ltd
Income 2005-2006 = Rs 8000 Cr (rounded off)
Net profit after tax (05-06) = Rs 2000 Cr (rounded off)
Karmayog CSR Rating- 0/5
CSR activities:
ITC’s diversified business portfolio has enabled the Company to create and nurture numerous farmer partnerships in many value chains. These cover multiple crops and geographies. Leveraging these partnerships, ITC has created a number of unique community development programmes by synergising its social sector initiatives with its business plans.
ITC believes that the inter-dependence between its agri-based businesses and the farm sector constitutes a sustainable platform to enlarge its contribution to the Indian rural sector.
The core principles that drive these initiatives are:
�Customise the development model to address the diversity of rural India.
�Enable even marginal farmers to access knowledge to compete on an equal footing in the market place.
�Empower rural communities, so that development planning and implementation are participatory.
ITC’s rural development initiatives embrace several critical areas:
�Web-enablement of the Indian farmer to help him access relevant knowledge and services to enhance farm productivity
Through the e-Choupal initiative, ITC aims to confer the power of expert knowledge on even the smallest individual farmer. Thus enhancing his competitiveness in the global market.
The immense potential of Indian agriculture is waiting to be unleashed. The endemic constraints that shackle this sector are well known – fragmented farms, weak infrastructure, numerous intermediaries, excessive dependence on the monsoon, variations between different agro-climatic zones, among many others. These pose their own challenges to improving productivity of land and quality of crops. The unfortunate result is inconsistent quality and uncompetitive prices, making it difficult for the farmer to sell his produce in the world market. ITC’s trail-blazing answer to these problems is the e-Choupal initiative; the single-largest information technology-based intervention by a corporate entity in rural India. Transforming the Indian farmer into a progressive knowledge-seeking netizen. Enriching the farmer with knowledge; elevating him to a new order of empowerment.
e-Choupal delivers real-time information and customised knowledge to improve the farmer’s decision-making ability, thereby better aligning farm output to market demands; securing better quality, productivity and improved price discovery. The model helps aggregate demand in the nature of a virtual producers’ co-operative, in the process facilitating access to higher quality farm inputs at lower costs for the farmer. The e-Choupal initiative also creates a direct marketing channel, eliminating wasteful intermediation and multiple handling, thus reducing transaction costs and making logistics efficient. The e-Choupal project is already benefiting over 3.5 million farmers. Over the next decade, the e-Choupal network will cover over 100,000 villages, representing 1/6th of rural India, and create more than 10 million e-farmers.
A digital transformation
ITC began the silent e-volution of rural India with soya growers in the villages of Madhya Pradesh. For the first time, the stereotype image of the farmer on his bullock cart made way for the e-farmer, browsing the e-Choupal website. Farmers now log on to the site through Internet kiosks in their villages to order high quality agri-inputs, get information on best farming practices, prevailing market prices for their crops at home and abroad and the weather forecast – all in the local language. In the very first full season of e-Choupal operations in Madhya Pradesh, soya farmers sold nearly 50,000 tons of their produce through the e-Choupal Internet platform, which has more than doubled since then. The result marks the beginning of a transparent and cost-effective marketing channel. Bringing prosperity to the farmers’ doorstep.
Linking farmers to remunerative markets
Farmers grow wheat across several agro-climatic zones, producing grains of varying grades. Though these grades had the potential to meet diverse consumer preferences, the benefit never trickled down to the farmers, because all varieties were aggregated as one average quality in the mandis. Enter ITC’s e-Choupal intervention. The e-Choupal site is now helping the farmers discover the best price for their quality at the village itself. The site also provides farmers with specialised knowledge for customising their produce to the right consumer segments. The new storage and handling system preserves the identity of different varieties right through the ‘farm-gate to dinner-plate’ supply chain. Encouraging the farmers to raise their quality standards and attract higher prices.
Managing risks through technology
The whats and ifs in the aqua farmers’ life posed daunting odds. They were haunted by the nightmare of contaminated soil, wrong levels of salinity in the water or the killer White Spot virus, any of which could wipe out an entire shrimp crop, until the e-Choupal site provided them the support and the know-how to cope with and manage such risks. Information equips farmers with comprehensive know-how to keep abreast of food safety norms to compete in the international market. Information includes parameters for antibiotic usage, hygienic washing, sanitised dressing and air-tight packing. All these factors help to neutralise the risks involved in aqua farming. Making it economically much more attractive, benefiting hundreds of aqua farmers.
A dependable knowledge partner
Coffee planters in India have for years been tossed between the highs and lows of the international coffee market. The information needed to manage risks in the volatile global coffee market, price updates and prevalent trends in coffee trading were just not available to them. Launch of e-Choupal.com has equipped India’s coffee planters with appropriate knowledge base and risk management tools. The site arms them with the latest prices posted on commodity exchanges like CSCE in New York and LIFFE in London. Planters have access to technical analysis by experts to help them comprehend trends, trading ranges and chart patterns in simple language. ‘Parity Chart’ and the ‘Calculator’ on the site convert the coffee prices quoted in international auctions into raw coffee equivalent for the benefit of the small growers in India. Tradersnet, a special link on the site, brings together a large number of coffee planters, traders and roasters, creating a virtual market for transparent price discovery. ITC empowers Indian coffee growers with expert knowledge in logistics and risk management, thereby enabling them to face global competition.
” A quiet digital revolution is reshaping the lives of farmers in remote Indian villages.
In these villages, farmers grow soyabeans, wheat and coffee in small plots of land, as they have for thousands of years. A typical village has no reliable electricity and has antiquated telephone lines. The farmers are largely illiterate and have never seen a computer. But farmers in these villages are conducting e-business through an initiative called e-Choupal, created by ITC, one of India’s largest consumer product and agribusiness companies.”
Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management, USA.
Primary education for the rural poor to enhance employability – ITC provides poor children the greatest asset that they can aspire to: education for a brighter future.Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has pointed out that the opportunities promised by market-based reforms are critically circumscribed in a nation where large numbers cannot read or write or count.ITC’s education support programmes are aimed at overcoming the lack of opportunities available to the poor. ITC believes that the extensive network of government-supported schools must be made more attractive to children. It provides critical support to state-run schools to maximise enrolment and minimise dropouts.Its initiatives include improving school buildings, constructing toilets, providing electricity connections and supplying fans and lights. ITC provides students with uniforms, satchels and books. So far, 50,260 children have benefited in 7 states. ITC has financed the establishment of Supplementary Learning Centres to help poor students cope with their lessons and improve their scholastic abilities, thereby preventing dropouts. This scheme also benefits educated local youth who serve as tutors at these centres. ITC-sponsored NGOs also conduct teacher training programmes to raise the standard of teaching in government-run primary schools. ITC helps NGOs to organise summer camps, sports and other extra-curricular activities as part of the overall development inputs for children.
�Social and farm forestry to generate farm incomes in tribal hinterlands while restoring ecological balance.
ITC’s afforestation mission goes beyond regenerating wastelands and forests. It enhances farm incomes and generates sustainable employment.
ITC’s afforestation project is driven by the realisation that India’s poor forest cover – a meagre 11% of the geographical area of the country against a desirable 33% – has serious implications for the rural poor. Forests and common property resources constitute as much as 20% or more of the total income source of such households. ITC has effectively leveraged its need for wood fibre to provide significant opportunities to economically backward wasteland owners. The main plank of ITC’s forestry projects is the building of grassroots capacities to initiate a virtuous cycle of sustainable development. In a single year- 2005-06, ITC’s afforestation programme has resulted in the planting of 49 million saplings. So far, 265 million saplings have been planted in nearly 65,000 hectares, generating employment opportunities for 6,00,000 people. During the next 10 years, 600 million saplings will be planted over 100,000 hectares of private wastelands, benefiting 1.2 million people.ITC, working with select NGOs, identifies poor tribals with wastelands and organises them into self-supporting forest user groups. The user group leaders are trained by ITC to follow best silvicultural practices to grow high quality timber as a viable cash crop, and other local species that meet domestic, fodder, fuel and nutrition requirements. ITC provides a comprehensive package of support and extension services to farmers – loans, land development, planting of saplings, plantation maintenance, marketing and funds management. Helping the farmer produce a quality that attracts the best price. After the first harvest, the farmer returns the loan to his forest resource user group, in the process, creating a village development fund large enough to sponsor aspiring timber growers. Or meet other village development needs. Making sustainability a reality.
ITC also makes available high-yielding, disease-resistant clonal planting stock developed through biotechnology-based research at its Bhadrachalam unit. The commercial viability of these clones is evident from the fact that farmers have brought nearly 41,000 hectares under such plantations. Another 8,000 hectares have been planted by the forest departments of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and West Bengal. At the heart of this comprehensive greening project is ITC’s state-of-art research centre, consistently striving for productivity improvement of several tree species in order to give attractive land-use alternatives to traditional farmers and wasteland owners. So far 107 high-yielding, fast-growing and disease-resistant ‘Bhadrachalam’ clones have been produced on a commercial scale with productivity that is 6-9 times that of the normal seedlings. Included in these are 23 site-specific clones adapted to problematic alkaline and saline soils. In the pipeline are research projects on casuarina, subabul, rain-fed bamboo and sustainable agro-forestry models.
These strategic initiatives will, on one hand, make procurement of industrial timber exclusively from sustainable sources a reality within 10 years and on the other hand, benefit 1.2 million people through incremental employment. Additionally, it helps forest conservation by reducing pressure on public forests. Apart from the obvious benefits of increasing the forest cover, this effort also directly contributes to in-situ moisture conservation, groundwater recharge and significant reduction in top-soil losses due to wind and water erosion. With poor households having access to their own woody biomass under ITC’s social forestry programme, they can meet most of their fuelwood requirements in-house through loppings and toppings, thus further reducing pressure on public forests. As a result of the leaf-litter from multi-species plantations and the promotion of leguminous inter-crops, depleted soils are constantly enriched. Soon this will lead to a decline in fertiliser and pesticide consumption, thus reducing the pollution of groundwater sources by such chemicals.
�Integrated watershed development to reverse land degradation and provide critical irrigation
ITC has initiated a comprehensive watershed development programme which is critical to soil-water retention and the reversal of land degradation.
Some dry and despairing facts stare India in the face. The present average soil loss in the country is about 16.35 tons per hectare per year, which is at least 3 to 5 times worse than what it ought to be. Nearly 67% of the cultivated area in the country faces severe moisture stress for 5 to 10 months a year. Crop productivity in drylands is low, unstable and highly vulnerable to seasonality.
ITC’s integrated watershed development initiative is a key intervention to reverse such moisture stress in some of the more acutely affected, drought-prone districts of the country. Currently, 1531 small and large water harvesting structures built by ITC provide critical irrigation to over 14,000 hectares of land in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. This programme will soon be extended to Bihar.
ITC’s watershed development seeks to achieve two critical objectives: water conservation and soil enrichment. It constitutes water user groups and trains them to plan and build water harvesting structures like contour bunds, check dams, percolation tanks and farm ponds. Trained farmers use their knowledge of the terrain to identify locations for building water structures and develop the related micro plans. ITC contributes 75% of the cost, the balance 25% being mobilised by the user groups. The rich silt excavated from percolation tanks is used to enhance soil fertility. User groups raise regular contributions from the farmers to meet the maintenance cost of these water harvesting structures.
So far ITC’s Soil and Moisture Conservation Programme covers 26,704 hectares of rain fed agricultural land and generates employment during the lean season.
Also
�Economic empowerment of women to transform them into powerful agents of social change
�Enhancing livestock quality to significantly improve dairy productivity –
To know more on CSR of this company :
http://www.itcportal.com/sets/rural_frameset.htm
Amount spent on CSR : No information regarding the amount spent on CSR was available on the homepage .
Contact details : ITC Ltd
Virginia House
37 J.L.Nehru Rd, Kolkatta 700 071
EPABX NO. : 91-(0)33 22889371
Web address : http://www.itcportal.com/