ABOUT ITC
Ø India’s foremost private sector companies with a market capitalisation of more than US $ 10 billion
Ø Presence in Cigarettes, Hotels, Paperboards & Specialty Papers, Packaging, Agri-Business, Packaged Foods & Confectionery, Branded Apparel, Greeting Cards and other FMCG products.
Ø India’s largest exporters of agricultural products.
ABOUT Self-Help Group
Ø Self-Help Group (SHG) is a small voluntary association of poor people
Ø ITC have lately been approaching SHGs across the country to market their products
What is e-choupal? How does it work?
Ø Taking the Internet to the villages and empowering rural India with information at the click of a button is what best describes ITC’s much acclaimed initiative – e-Choupal.
Ø Places computers with Internet access in rural farming villages
Ø Farmers can use the computer to access daily closing prices on local mandis, as well as to track global price trends or find information about new farming techniques – either directly or, because many farmers are illiterate, via the sanchalak.
Ø Use the e-Choupal to order seed, fertilizer, and other products such as consumer goods from ITC or its partners, at prices lower than those available from village traders
How e-choupal helps in strengthening the agricultural business arm in ITC?
Ø Single-largest information technology-based intervention
Ø Direct marketing channel, eliminating wasteful intermediation and multiple handling, thus reducing transaction costs and making logistics efficient.
Ø Created a highly profitable distribution and product design channel for the company
Ø Preventing their expertise from being shared with ITC’s Competition.
Ø It enables rapid, low-cost information dissemination and a trusted brand for introducing new Products, while minimizing the need for a traveling sales force.
Ø E-Choupal also allows ITC to develop long-term supplier relationships with farmers and attain some degree of supply security over time.
Homemaker to Income-builder
Ø Bhatoura village. Sursa block. Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh. Rambeti was just another homemaker from a backward group till her friends and neighbours convinced her to join their self-help group, Shilpika. They even coaxed her to be one of the office-bearers. Shilpika, with the help of ITC and its partner NGO, worked on a simple mandate – to upgrade the Chikankari skills of local women and connect them to markets. Rambeti was instrumental in getting a Master Chikan craftsman to train 50 Shilpika members in the intricacies of the craft that would fetch them far better remuneration than the Rs 50 to Rs 100 they usually earned for a month of backbreaking work. As the project gathered momentum, it was evident that the self- help groups needed ‘Sanchalikas’ – caretakers – for the Chikan production centres. Rambeti was the natural choice for her group. They also started participating in exhibitions to promote their products. Today, her group earns a cumulative wage of Rs 70,000 per annum and has made profits of Rs 52,000. The profit first goes towards repayment of their loans. Residual profits are shared among the group members. Since the loans are disbursed from a rotating fund provided by ITC, repayment enables other beneficiaries to participate in this virtuous cycle. Rambeti has been instrumental in setting up another production group called Kashida.
Ø Across several states in India, ITC is helping thousands of women like Rambeti help themselves.
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