Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Apr 22, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Apr 22, 2006 |
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Corporate
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Society & Development Industry & Economy - Environment ITC Paperboards' social strategy pays dividends C.R. Sukumar
Bhadrachalam , April 21 The farm and social forestry strategy devised by the ITC Paperboards and Speciality Papers Division (ITC-PSPD) to address the problem of rising demand-supply gap for quality wood for paper production has enabled the company manage multi-fold successes. The strategy has not only helped the company achieve self-sufficiency for key raw material and significantly improve productivity, but also enabled it offer rural and tribal farmers an alternative land use option and alternative and sustainable means of livelihood. Thanks to an extensive research and development (R&D) programme on clonal technology based plantations taken up at over Rs 30 crore, the company could successfully come out with high yielding pulpwood varieties, the ITC-PSPD Deputy General Managing (Plantations), Dr H.D. Kulkarni, told Business Line. "Through clonal technology, fast growing, high yielding and disease resistant clones were produced that have a uniform survival rate of 90-95 per cent and a productivity of 20-58 tonnes per hectare per year. This yield is 3-6 times more than that of the ordinary seedling plantations," Dr Kulkarni said. The company's social forestry programme has helped poor tribal families begin a new life in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. The company, with the help of select NGOs and Government, identified poor tribals with wastelands and organised them into self-help forest user groups. "We trained these groups in best practices for growing plantations. Close to 6,000 hectares of wastelands in 224 villages belonging to 18 mandals in Khammam district were rejuvenated with eucalyptus, subabul, casuarina and others, which benefited over 6,500 households." According to Dr Kulkarni, the clonal plantation programme offered an average income of up to Rs 25,000 per hectare per year under rain-fed condition and up to Rs 40,000 per hectare per year with irrigation on a four-year rotation cycle. "This income is significantly higher compared to traditional crops grown in the operation area for Rs 12,500 per hectare under rain-fed condition and Rs 20,000 per hectare under irrigation." Owing to such alternative livelihood and higher income yields of clonal technology, the company has been witnessing nearly a gatecrash by the farmers for obtaining `ITC Bhadrachalam clones'. Keeping this in view, the company has significantly increased production capacity.
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