ITC to focus on agri-tech start-ups

ITC’s agri ecosystem model, in its latest version e-Choupal 4.0, will focus on further strengthening agricultural entrepreneurship and agri-tech start-ups through aggregator models. The e-choupal model, which was launched two decades ago, has gone through several stages of evolution.

e-Choupal 4.0, which primarily uses mobile phones and digital technology, started multiple pilots in 2019. It will be a plug-and- play platform for agri tech start-ups. Under this model, personalisation of services will get sharpened and will be driven by data analytics, he said.

With an advancement of e-commerce, the rural supermarkets created under the e-Choupal model – Choupal Sagars – will operate in a hub-and-spoke model.

ITC aspires to progressively reach out to 10 million farmers by 2030 through e-Choupal 4.0. The e-Choupal ecosystem has so far empowered four million farmers.

Through its social investments programme, ITC Mission Sunhera Kal, the company ensured that migrant workers who have returned and marginal farmers engage in income-generating activities by leveraging the livelihoods opportunities under the MGNREGS scheme.

“We have been able to contribute in creating 7.5 lakh person days of employment for rural people through these initiatives during the pandemic so far. The plan is to scale up this activity in different regions, based on the specific requirements of those regions,” he said.

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