PRESENTED TO :DR. DEBOMALYA GHOSH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR DBA, ASAAM UNIVERSITY PRESENTED BY:SHAHARUL ISLAM BARBHUIYA ROLL NO.

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choupal is a village gathering place where knowledge could be shared and captured. The e- choupal initiativewhereby a choupal is equipped with a computer and Internet
A Coupal is a Hindi word. a

connectivityis the plan of a large agricultural processing company in India, the Indian Tobacco Company (ITC).

The village Dahod appeared to be an unlikely setting for a technological revolution, located in Indias central state of Madhya Pradesh. Dahod was mostly dominated by Soyabean farmers . Soyabean and its derivatives comprised two third of ITCs agricultural export. The concept of eChoupal was pondered S. Shivakumar, who was the Chief Executive in IBD of ITC Limited.

Traditional Soyabean Supply Chain

Price discovery by word of mouth Authorised price

Farmer

Mandi
Comission Agent

ITC

Processi ng

Other Buyers

The limited technological resources had constrained the dissemination of know-how in rural farming communities. Farmers do not have access to quality inputs such as storing seeds, herbicides, and pesticides, or information, such as accurate weather reports. Similarly, on the side, middle men clogged the supply chain, reducing profit margins for both farmers and buyers such as ITC.

At May 1999 meeting , Sivakumar & his team conceived ITCs eChoupal initiative . ITC supplied a computer kit to each village with the following components :A PC with a Windows / Intel platform , multimedia kit & connectivity interface . Connection lines A power supply consisting of UPS battery back up A printer With the arrival of these components , farmers were able to access the World Wide Web www.soyachoupal.com This Website was updated by the ITC Bhopal office . The data uplink took place in Bangalore , home of ITC Infotech India Ltd.

There were links to the areas of key information that comprised the eChoupal : Weather Page Best Practice page Crop information page Market information News page Feedback & information

The physical setup of the eChoupal kiosks faciliated a new kind of supply chain,of which technology was at the crux. Trading outside the mandi was very difficultMandi provided the only means of price discovery and farmers reasonably assumed they would fare best in open auction. Transactions outside the mandi was officialy prohibited by the agricltural Produce Marketing Act. Web technology changed the way farmers did their businessBy following the real time prices on the web site the farmers could decide when to sell. Prices could be communicated to the farmers.

ITC had 5 processing units in MP & 39 ware houses. There were 51 large soybean-based mandis in the state . ITC had 1695 eChoupals in MP , covering 8400 villages & reaching 80 % of soybean & wheat-growing areas in the state . ITC further added 3 processing hubs & 36 ware houses in MP after the eChoupal project got under way . The processing facility included a soil-testing lab on the premises, where scientists offered recommendations for fertilizers on the chemical composition of the farmers sample .

Infrastructural inadequacies Inadequate power supply Telecom connectivity and Bandwidth Imparting skills to the first time internet users in remote and inaccessible areas of rural India.

ITCs vision for marketing..

a.
b. c.

Superior product & distinctive functional benefits Process benefits (simplified transactions between buyer and seller) Relationship benefits (farmers willingness to deal)

The pioneering eChoupal business model contributes to creating the market through improved farm incomes, while placing ITC in a unique position to reap benefits through its closeness to the potential customer.

Thank you
3-Apr-12

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