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 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

Caught in a vicious cycle of underdevelopment Low Risk Appetite Weak Market Orientation Low Investment Low Margins Low Productivity Low Value Addition Caught in a vicious cycle of underdevelopment

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 Vision 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