The Hindu Business Line : ITC to source agarbatti raw material from Tripura

IN a major bid to source raw material for its growing agarbatti marketing business from the north-eastern region, ITC Ltd has signed an MoU with the Tripura Government for a bamboo development programme.

The other two MoU partners that are actively involved in the project are Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and ERG, a Bangalore-based design-engineering consultancy organisation.

ITC has already identified its first vendor unit in West Tripura's industrial growth centre, Jayanti Domestic Products Pvt Ltd, which will be supplying exclusively 4-5 million agarbattis per month.

The unit was inaugurated by the Tripura Chief Minister, Mr Manik Sarkar, on Tuesday.

The company, which has a base in Bangalore, will be making the Mangaldeep brand of hand-made agarbattis in three fragrances of rose, jasmine and madhur, priced at Rs 5 for a pack of 18 sticks and Rs 2 for 10 sticks.

The Chief Minister, while praising the role played by consultancy groups such as IL&FS and ERG, and corporates such as ITC for industrial development of Tripura, said job creation through smaller and medium units, which can utilise the abundant natural resources such as bamboo and gas, was the way forward.

"The stamp of `Made in Tripura' on the Mangaldeep agarbattis marketed by ITC throughout India will be a wonderful tribute to our bamboo growers and artisans," he pointed out.

Quality, he told the vendor unit personnel, should not be compromised at any cost, as the product would now be linked with Tripura, and should stand for `super quality'.

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