ITC schemes :

• e-choupal initiative is designed to enhance farm productivity and provide market linkages.

• Social forestry scheme has greened over 80,000 hectares.

• R&D projects have evolved high-yielding, site specific, disease-resistant clones.

• Comprehensive package of plantation management practices

• Watershed development projects benefit 33,311 farmers in 24 districts.

The stalemate in Singur over the proposed auto plant to be put up by Tata Motors and the resistance of farmers in refusing to vacate their lands acquired by the State Government for the industrial project or the referendum on Reliance Industries special economic zone (SEZ) in Raigad district in Maharashtra will not be isolated incidents in future, given the vocal voice of the stakeholders of the land and the growing marginalisation of the poor rural people.

As urban India shines in terms of best amenities available to the citizens, the rural and semi-rural people and their patrons from political parties would bid fair to impugn them for a slice of the cake or some modest improvement in their dreary existence.

It is small wonder that ITC, one of the country’s foremost private sector companies, with a market capitalisation of close to $19 billion and a turnover of over $5 billion with a diversified portfolio ranging from fast-moving consumer goods, hotels, paperboards and packaging to agri business and information technology, has forged unique business models that focused on rural India and attracted universal approval.

In its latest sustainability report, fifth in an annual series and independently verified by Ernst & Young, the ITC Chairman, Mr Y.C. Deveshwar, cautions that economic models that have led businesses to focus only on the uni-dimensional goal of fostering financial value with scant attention to the depletion of natural resources and the increasing disparities in incomes, risk derail growth and progress.

This is obviously because of the discontent of the left-out people, who would have been instrumental in the project either as owners of the land they parted with for petty monetary consideration or who do not stand to benefit by a job in the project.

In an increasingly inter-connected world, stakeholders including investors and consumers have raised the bar of expectations from private sector.

Mr Deveshwar said that this is not only in terms of world-class quality of products and services but also in terms of their response to issues of ethics, transparency and sustainability concerns.

e-choupal

ITC’s e-choupal initiative, designed to enhance farm productivity and provide market linkages and numbering 6,500, cover 40,000 villages and benefit over four million farmers.

Social forestry

The social forestry initiative of the company has greened over 80,000 hectares and created cumulative employment of 35 million mandays, besides providing a reliable source of wood pulp for the long-term competitiveness and sustainability of ITC’s paper business.

Plantation management

Over 93 per cent of the company’s Bhadrachalam mill’s aggregate wood need in 2007-08 came from plantations initiated through the forestry project undertaken by tribals and marginal farmers. As the availability of wood, the prime source of fibre for the paper and paperboards remains a key challenge and concern for sustainability, the company’s R&D initiatives have evolved high-yielding, disease-resistant clones and a comprehensive package of plantation management practices.

The sustainability report said the company is committed to green one lakh hectares in the next few years, which would far exceed its wood fibre requirement, foster livelihood chances for a very large number of people in tribal belts and further consolidate its position as a ‘carbon positive’ corporation.

Renewable energy

What is particularly noteworthy is that 96 per cent of the company’s energy requirements are panned out internally with more than 24 per cent of energy generated from renewable resources.

The report also highlights that ITC has been a “water positive’ firm and today the company generates three times more freshwater harvesting potential than it consumes and sequesters almost twice the amount of carbon its plants emit.

Recycling solid waste

In 2007-08, the company also compassed the 100 per cent benchmark in recycling solid waste in several of its operations. Moreover, the company’s watershed development projects now assist farmers in 24 districts, benefiting 33,311 farmers.

A total of 2,178 water harvesting structures have been created, providing critical irrigation to 18,483 hectares of farmland.

Finally, ITC’s ‘Mission Sunehra Kal’ encompassing its sustainable development initiatives would continue to provide thrust to identified triple interventions viz., natural resource management (wasteland, watershed and agriculture development), sustainable livelihoods comprising genetic improvement in livestock and economic empowerment of women and community development with focus on primary education, heath and sanitation.

Social policy analysts contend that if corporate social responsibility (CSR) is taken by all big companies earnestly with a view to building public-private partnership for sustainable and inclusive growth, the simmering tensions and resistance to industrial development through setting up economic enclaves or big projects would gradually fade as rural people would hopefully find a decent way out of their dire predicament of penury.