New Delhi
ITC Ltd has firmed up plans to extend its
e-choupal initiative to cover one-lakh villages across the country with the next decade.
Starting with six e-choupals in June 2000,
ITC’s Internet-based, rural initiative has succeeded in linking 6,000 villages with
around 1,200 e-choupals. The setting up of each e-choupal entails an investment of Rs 1-3
lakh.
Stating this during an informal interface
with newspersons after delivering the keynote address at Infocom 2002 here on Tuesday, the
Chairman of ITC Ltd, Mr. Y. C. Deveshwar, said the e-choupals operate as a trading,
marketing and distribution superhighway of goods and services across rural India. The idea
behind the initiative was to facilitate direct marketing of products by eliminating
wasteful intermediation.
This, in turn, was aimed at empowering
farmers at the grassroots level. The company was adding four e-choupals every day, he
said.
Mr. Deveshwar said plans were being firmed
up to bring aqua-products within the Internet-based, e-choupal initiative with a view to
facilitating aquamarine exports. Talks in this regard have already been initiated at
appropriate quarters.
Earlier, in his address at the technical
session, Mr. Deveshwar presented a strong case for application of IT in the farm sector.
In this context, he cited ITC’s e-choupal initiative which offers an alternative
model that has the potential to "transform rural economics in India by contributing
to efficiency in farm production and ensuring flow of goods and services in and out of
rural India. This is sought to be achieved by empowering the farmer in a number of ways by
the use of IT."
According to him, besides inducing
efficiency of the mandi channel through competition, the IT-enabled, market-led e-choupal
business model has the potential to trigger a virtuous cycle of higher productivity,
higher incomes and enlarged capacity for farmer risk management, thus leading to higher
investments and enhancement in quality and productivity.
Dwelling at length on the "creative
application of information technology", Mr. Deveshwar sounded a note of caution and
said that the IT industry must focus on "building business on strong strategic
foundations". Besides, it would be imperative for companies in the industry to
‘clearly think through your respective value propositions," he said.
