Envisioning a larger societal purpose has always been a hallmark of ITC. The company sees no conflict between the twin goals of shareholder value enhancement and societal value creation. The challenge lies in fashioning a corporate strategy that enables realisation of these goals in a mutually reinforcing and synergistic manner.

As a corporate citizen with enduring relationships in rural India, ITC has a history of collaboration with communities and government institutions to enhance farm productivity and the rural resource base. ITC’s commitments in agricultural R&D and knowledge sharing have spanned vital aspects of competitiveness – efficient farm practices, soil and water management.

	ITC is committed to a national agenda of raising agricultural productivity and making the rural economy more socially inclusive. ITC believes that the urgency and scale of these tasks make market linked solutions and innovations more effective and sustainable than capital intensive approaches.

In 2000, harnessing the empowering force of information technology and its scalabilty, ITC launched e-Choupal – a knowledge portal providing farmers with a range of information and services. Designed to enable them to bargain collectively and enhance their transactive power, e-Choupal became the much needed and easily adoptable tool farmers had been waiting for. Today e-Choupal is a vibrant and rapidly growing zone of business and interaction for over 4 million farmers.

ITC moved rapidly to apply the economic momentum of e-Choupal to solving urgent social and environmental tasks. ITC launched Mission Sunehra Kal, a rural capacity building programme fostering local initiatives to develop water and forest resources, open up new non-farm livelihoods, empower women economically and expand primary education.

The Mission now embraces a community of thousands of villages that are influential nuclei of change in rural localities spread over 11 States. A clearly focused self-help movement has gained ground in village after village in these areas, with farmers co-operating to create much needed economic, environmental and social assets out of their own resources.

By linking knowledge and technology transfer to the creation of economic and social capacity, ITC has brought a new dynamic to rural development.

ITC has consciously chosen the path less travelled. A path that has led it to create sustainable livelihoods for 5 million people. For ITC this is an expression of a commitment beyond the market. Of a conviction that country must come before corporation. Of a true pride in being Citizen First.