2. ITC is one of India's foremost private sector companies with a market
capitalization of nearly US $ 19 billion* and a turnover of over US $ 5.1 Billion. ITC
is rated among the World's Best Big Companies, Asia's 'Fab 50' and the World's
Most Reputable Companies by Forbes magazine, among India's Most Respected
Companies by Business World and among India's Most Valuable Companies by
Business Today. ITC ranks among India's `10 Most Valuable (Company) Brands', in a
study conducted by Brand Finance and published by the Economic Times. ITC also
ranks among Asia's 50 best performing companies compiled by Business Week.
ITC has a diversified presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty
Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Information
Technology, Branded Apparel, Personal Care, Stationery, Safety Matches and
other FMCG products. While ITC is an outstanding market leader in its traditional
businesses of Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards, Packaging and Agri-Exports, it is
rapidly gaining market share even in its nascent businesses of Packaged Foods &
Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Personal Care and Stationery.
ITC's diversified status originates from its corporate strategy aimed at
creating multiple drivers of growth anchored on its time-tested core competencies:
unmatched distribution reach, superior brand-building capabilities, effective supply
chain management and acknowledged service skills in hoteliering. Over time, the
strategic forays into new businesses are expected to garner a significant share of
these emerging high-growth markets in India
ITC's Agri-Business is one of India's largest exporters of agricultural products.
ITC is one of the country's biggest foreign exchange earners (US $ 3.2 billion in the
last decade). The Company's 'E-Choupal' initiative is enabling Indian agriculture
significantly enhance its competitiveness by empowering Indian farmers through the
power of the Internet. This transformational strategy, which has already become the
subject matter of a case study at Harvard Business School, is expected to
progressively create for ITC a huge rural distribution infrastructure, significantly
enhancing the Company's marketing reach.
3. ITC's production facilities and hotels have won numerous national and
international awards for quality, productivity, safety and environment management
systems. ITC was the first company in India to voluntarily seek a corporate governance
rating.
ITC employs over 25,000 people at more than 60 locations across India. The
Company continuously endeavors to enhance its wealth generating capabilities in a
globalizing environment to consistently reward more than 3, 72,000 shareholders,
fulfill the aspirations of its stakeholders and meet societal expectations. This over-
arching vision of the company is expressively captured in its corporate positioning
statement: "Enduring Value. For the nation. For the Shareholder.”
ITC has taken an initiative called “ Lets put India first” in which they have
started different projects like:-
E-CHOUPAL – It has started across 10 states covering 40,000 villages
via 6500 Choupal helping 4 million farmers. It is a powerful illustration of corporate
strategy linking business purpose to larger societal purpose; e-Choupal leverages the
Internet to empower small and marginal farmers – who constitute a majority of the
75% of the population below the poverty line. Which provides them with farming know-
how and services, timely and relevant weather information, transparent price discovery
and access to wider markets; e-Choupal enabled economic capacity to proliferate at
the base of the rural economy.
4. Today 4 million farmers use e-Choupal to advantage – bargaining as virtual
buyers’ co-operatives, adopting best practices, matching up to food safety norms.
Being linked to futures markets is helping small farmers to better manage risk. E-
Choupal has been specially cited in the Government of India’s Economic Survey of
2006-07, for its transformational impact on rural lives.
The network of 6,500 e-Choupal centers spread across 40,000 villages has emerged
as the gateway of an expanding spectrum of commodities leaving farms – wheat, rice,
pulses, soya, maize, spices, coffee and aqua-products. The reverse flow carries FMCG,
durables, automotives, banking and insurance services back to villages. E-Choupal is one
of the top five alternative channels for LIC Policy sales, and accounts for 10% of the
national weather insurance market. They have targeted to reach 15 more states
helping 10 million people via 20,000 E-choupal in next 5 years. It has continued to
build new infrastructure by supplementing the farmgate presence of e-Choupal with
new physical infrastructure rural marketing hubs called Choupal Saagars, positioned
within tractorable distance of 30 e-Choupal centers and their user communities.
5. By program Mission Sunehra Kal, ITC is increasing rural capacity building program,
which is now active in 11 States, empowers rural communities to adopt sustainable
changes that make them economically competitive and socially secure.
6. SOCIAL & FARM FOREST- In this program ITC jointly addresses
the livelihood problems of marginal farmers and the ecological imperative of
regenerating biomass and nurturing depleted soils. They organize wasteland owners
into forest user groups who are trained in silviculture, land development and plantation
maintenance. Extension services support them with a package of loans and supplies of
high-yielding, disease-resistant clonal saplings developed at ITC’s R&D Laboratory at
Bhadrachalam.
They have helped to bring nearly 13,000 hectares of wasteland under social
forestry benefiting more than 16,000 poor households in 466 villages. As an
innovative move, linking these farmers’ need for income to the wood fiber needs of its
paperboards business, ITC has enabled them to convert their wastelands to pulpwood
plantations – a commercially viable land use alternative that can end their
marginalization
They have developed 88,409 hectares & planted nearly 353 million saplings
which has generated employment for 39 million people till now
WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT- Most of ITC’s partner communities
are in moisture-stressed semi-arid regions where erratic rainfall patterns have led to
large scale crop failures over successive seasons. Marginal farmers are especially
7. vulnerable and often forced to leave their villages in search of a livelihood. To help
them independently manage water resources, ITC has assisted farming communities in
24 districts across 7 states to organize themselves into water user groups. Groups
are trained in watershed management techniques that complement traditional water
harvesting practices. Members learn to create budgets, formulate rules and
regulations for water sharing, fix water user charges and tap government development
schemes.
This initiative has led to improvement in soil & moisture regimes by these water tables
have risen up & farmer can harvest more than one crop a year. They have done the
conservation of more than 39,000 hectares of land till now.
INTEGRATED AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT-This program
promotes a combination of solutions for optimizing water management and enhancing
farm productivity. In this ITC supports farmers to adopt efficient irrigation practices,
8. propagates the diversification of rain-fed crops and encourages farmers to produce
and apply organic compost. Continuous farm extension services through demonstration
plots speed up the adoption of best practices. Training and supervision foster the
sharing of information and experience among farmers.
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT- The empowerment of women has a great
effect in rural society, strengthening their voice in the community, forcing attention
on human development issues of child rearing, education, health and gender parity.
Micro credits are given to women in group of 10-20 to form common funds through
individual monthly contributions, raising a buffer against family expenses and
emergencies. Women have gone into the making and marketing of a range of cottage
products – pickles, dried fish, organic manure, spices, agarbattis, tailoring, embroidery,
etc. They have given micro credits to 984 groups making more than 16,000 women
entrepreneurs.
9. LIVE STOCK DEVELOPMENT- Although 70% of India’s rural
population owns cattle, milk yields are low due to poor quality stock. By helping families
to upgrade to high-yield livestock and form co-operatives to market their milk, ITC
turns a sleeping family resource into an easily adoptable and dynamic rural enterprise.
For getting high yield of milk they have collaborated with BAIF Institute for Rural
Development, a national NGO specializing in livestock development, ITC focuses on
small and landless farmers, assisting them to genetically upgrade their cattle through
artificial insemination. Door-to-door collection of milk by marketing co-operatives,
fostered by ITC with seed capital, channels the farm family’s domestic milk production
to large dairies, connecting farmers to the formal milk market.
Till now 98,017 farmers are benefited from it across 2320 villages there
target is to reach 3500 villages in next few years
10. SPREADING THE JOY OF LEARNING (PRIMARY
EDUCATION) - The inability of economically weak rural families to access
primary education and primary health services is a major obstacle to rural
development. ITC’s initiatives are aimed at (i) improving infrastructure in Government
schools, (ii) providing supplementary education to support children with school learning
and exam preparation and (iii) building community and parental involvement with school
education so that more children go to school and finish school.
Assistance provided to Government Primary Schools includes drinking water
tanks, toilets, lights and fans, desks and
chairs, structural additions and improvements, along with training for teachers and
support for recreation and cultural activities.
To improve educational outreach, ITC supports experimental projects that are
making learning more informal. A network of 263 libraries and resource centers is
supported by mobile library services that spread and sustain the reading habit.
Roaming Laptops foster computer literacy in schools.
11. SAFE GUARDING MOTHER & CHILD – ITC provides free
healthcare service to 45,000 mothers &children below 5years. Over 8 yrs ITC has
helped nearly 2700 families to construct their own sanitary units.
ITC supports community health services focused on the needs of young children
and their mothers. Regular camps are held to build awareness, promote better
healthcare practices and provide curative healthcare. Hygiene is integral to health
consciousness and prevention of sickness. ITC assists rural families to construct low
cost sanitary units for their homes – a crucial step towards improving social dignity and
public hygiene
