ITC working towards enhancing farmers' income, says chairman YC Deveshwar at company's AGM

Kolkata: Diversified conglomerate ITC Limited has adopted an innovative approach to maximise farm utilisation for 12 months in a year, a top company official said on Friday. Speaking at the company’s AGM here, chairman YC Deveshwar said “an integrated scheme named ‘Baareh Mahine Hariyali’ was aimed at maximising farm utilisation over 12 months of the year with the view to multiply farmers’ income in locations piloted in select areas of the company’s operations.” He said around 30,000 farmers who had adopted the elements of the integrated approach reported doubling of income, and those who done it partially saw income rising 30 percent to 75 percent. [caption id=“attachment_3074160” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Y.C. Deveshwar, chairman, ITC. Reuters[/caption] The company had earlier introduced the e-choupal programme as a part of ITC’s intervention into the agriculture sector. To reduce agri-wastage, he said that the company was “actively pursuing a long-term strategy to build cost-effective cold chain which would also contribute to raising rural incomes”. Deveshwar said that ITC was making ongoing investments in setting up the Integrated Consumer Goods and Logistics Facilities (ICML) through a network of cold-chain infrastructure. Replying to shareholders queries, Deveshwar said last year, 30 new products in the FMCG segment. He said the company had taken ‘an audacious vision’ of earning Rs one lakh crore from branded consumer products by 2030. Regarding ITC’s entry into the healthcare care as announced earlier, he said ITC had hired a chief executive for running the hospital. He said regarding the launch of new products in the future the board would take a decision depending on the value proposition which it accrues. Deveshwar said that ITC has adopted the ’the triple bottomline’ for sustainable development.