PTI
Bhopal
Diversified group ITC is expecting nearly three-fold jump in turnover of its agri division to touch Rs 18,000 crore in the next five years, driven mostly by procurement and retail initiatives in rural markets.
ITC expects the agri business division to have a turnover of Rs 6,500 crore in the ongoing fiscal, up from Rs 5,672.07 crore in the last fiscal. A majority of the business is generated from its 'e-Choupals', a web-enabled supply chain network in villages and rural hypermarts 'Chaupal Sagars'.
Currently, the company has 6,500 e-Choupals and 25 Chaupal Sagars in 11 states that source a variety of farm produce like wheat, soya beans, coffee, shrimp, pulses, millets, barley, and jowar along with fruits such as mango, litchi, jamun, guava and pineapple.
ITC Agri Business Division COO, Rajnikant Rai said in the last five years the agri division has been witnessing an average growth of 15 to 20 per cent.
"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. Our target for financial year 2020-21 from this division is Rs 18,000 crore," he said.
ITC expects internal consumption by group companies to increase to almost half of its agri segment's business in the next five years.
On expansion of e-Choupals, Rai said, "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".
