Transcript ITC eChoupal Creating Shareholder Value through

ITC eChoupal
Creating Shareholder Value
through
Serving Society
Yogi Deveshwar
Chairman, ITC Limited
35th World Congress, Marrakech, Morocco
7th June 2004
The Context
• 72% of India lives in its villages
• 60% of workforce related to Agriculture
• Agriculture accounts for 24% of GDP
• Therefore, Low Rural per capita incomes
• Nearly 200 Million people live at the margin
The State of Indian Farmer
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Small Landholdings
Low literacy , Low Income
Over dependence on Rain
Weak Infrastructure : Physical , Social
Underserved on supply side
Monopoly channel on demand side
Over dependence on intermediaries
• Low productivity – Low risk taking ability – Low
share of consumer spend
Low Risk Appetite
Low Margins
Caught in a vicious
cycle of
underdevelopment
Low Value Addition
Low Investment
Low Productivity
Weak Market
Orientation
The eChoupal Challenge
• Break the Vicious Cycle and Kick start a
Virtuous Cycle of development
• A transformational initiative – to Create
markets before Serving them
The eChoupal Solution
Empower the farmer
• Create Collaboration to provide quality information and
extension services to build capacity to manage
• Create Competition – both supply side and demand
side
– To Make available reliable and cost effective inputs
– To Connect with markets – national & international
• Eliminate wasteful and parasitic intermediation
• Thus, capture larger share of growing consumer spend
for the farmer
The eChoupal infrastructure
What is it ?
• ICT Kiosk with Internet Access and Local
Language Content (Weather, Prices,
Farming Practices etc)
– In the house of one trained farmer, Sanchalak
– Within walking distance of target farmers
• Warehousing Hub with Internet Access
– Managed by the erstwhile middleman,
Samyojak
– Within tractorable distance of target farmers
The ITC eChoupal Scale
• Today
– 4100 Choupals are serving over 2.5 million farmers
and villagers across 25000 villages (adding 6 a day)
• Enhancing yields
• Higher capture of consumer spend
• Building capacities of rural communities
• Vision
– Reach 100,000 villages by 2010
• Dealing with wider variety of crops
• Pilots in watershed management and livestock management
are being scaled up
• Creating infrastructure for Education and Healthcare services
• Enhancing Quality of Life in rural India
In Conclusion
• Agriculture – a source of livelihood for millions
of small farmers
• Rural wealth creation in agriculture through
securing empowerment, collaboration and
competition
• ITC eChoupal - a transformational initiative for
sustainable development of society
Thank You
ICC – UNDP – IBLF
&
Ladies and Gentlemen
For more : visit www.itcportal.com ITC eChoupal