ITC Projects Revenue of Rs 18,000 Cr By 2021 From Agriculture Business
ITC Limited is an Indian multinational company with headquarter located in Kolkata, West Bengal. It comprises of five specialized business segments namely: Paperboards & Packaging, Hotels, Information Technology, Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and Agriculture Business.
The company was founded in the year 1910 and was known by the name of the Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited. But the company underwent many name changes in the course of its running. The first change took place in the year 1970 when it was renamed as Indian Tobacco Company Limited followed by a second change in the year 1974 which retained only the initials as I.T.C. Limited. Then in September 2001 the company further removed the periods from the initials and the new name was ITC Limited which it has retained till date. The business completed its centenary in the year 2010.
The ITC group has anticipated a turnover of Rs 18,000 in the coming five years’ time. The estimated turnover implies a three-fold jump and will be realized through procurement and trading enterprises in rural markets.
According to the estimates of ITC group the turnover for the ongoing fiscal year will be Rs 6,500 crore compared to Rs 5,672.07 crore turnover of last year. A bulk of the trade is generated from the company’s ‘e-Choupals’, a web-based supply chain system in rural areas along with rural hypermarts ‘ChaupalSagars’.
As per the statement of Rajnikant Rai, COO of ITC Agri-Business Division, the sector has witnessed an average growth rate of 15 to 20 percent since the last five years. “In the financial year 2009-10, we were at Rs 2,500 crore and now we are more than double of that in five years. Going forward, we have to maintain this growth…Our target for the financial year 2020-21 from this division is Rs 18,000 crore”, he said.
Currently, the company manages and owns 6,500 e-Choupals along with 25 ChaupalSagars in 11 Indian states. And the company sources various farm harvest like soya beans, jowar, wheat, barley, coffee, millets, pulses and shrimp and also includes fruits like pineapple, jamun, mango, guava and litchi.
The company also expects the ratio of internal consumption to rise up to 50 percent of its agriculture business in next five years term.
“Out of Rs 18,000 crore, which we are expecting by financial year 2020-21, 50 percent would be consumed internally and rest externally”, said Rai.
In the current financial year the sum total of internal consumption of company’s different firms will be around Rs 2,500 crore, added Rai.
At present, the company runs 6,500 e-Choupals which covers 40,000 villages in different Indian states like Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Maharashtra, connecting with nearly 4 million farmers.
Along with this ITC also runs 24 Chaupal Sagars where it retails products ranging from fertilizers to hair oil and from mixer-grinders to tractors.
Regarding the expansion of e-Choupals, Rad added, “As of now, we have sufficient capacity and we would expand only when we would go to new states where we believe that this model would succeed”.
