PROJECT REPORT ON AGRICULTURE BUSINESS FOR THE CSR IMPLEMENTATION FOR ITC

Submitted to Dr. Rajul Singh

Submitted by Anuraag Shrivastava FT-10-830 Section 1 C (IGSM)

Agri Commodities & Rural Services

To know more about ITC's unique e-Choupal initiative click here.

ITC's pre-eminent position as one of India's leading corporates in the agricultural sector is based on strong and enduring farmer partnerships that has revolutionized and transformed the rural agricultural sector. A unique rural digital infrastructure network, coupled with deep understanding of agricultural practices and intensive research, has built a competitive and efficient supply chain that creates and delivers immense value across the agricultural value chain. One of the largest exporters of agri products from the country, ITC sources the finest of Indian Feed Ingredients, Food Grains, Marine Products, Processed Fruits, Coffee & Spices. ITC's Agri Business Division is the country's second largest exporter of agri-products. It currently focuses on exports and domestic trading of:
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Feed Ingredients - Soyameal Food Grains - Rice (Basmati), Wheat Marine Products - Shrimps and Prawns Processed Fruits - Fruit Purees/Concentrates, IQF/Frozen Fruits, Organic Fruit Products, Fresh Fruits Coffee & Spices - Coffee, Black Pepper, Chilly, Turmeric, Ginger, Celery and other Seed Spices

Farmer empowerment through e-Choupals

ITC's unique strength in this business is the extensive backward linkages it has established with the farmers. This networking with the farming community has enabled ITC to build a highly cost effective procurement system. ITC has made significant investments in web-enabling the Indian farmer. Christened 'e-Choupal', ITC's empowerment plan for the farmer centres around providing Internet kiosks in villages. Farmers use this technology infrastructure to access on-line information from ITC's farmer-friendly website www.echoupal.com. Data accessed by the farmers relate to the weather, crop conditions, best practices in farming, ruling international prices and a host of other relevant information. e-Choupal today is the world's largest rural digital infrastructure. The unique e-Choupal model creates a significant two-way multi-dimensional channel which can efficiently carry products and services into and out of rural India, while recovering the associated costs through agri-sourcing led efficiencies. This initiative now comprises about 6500 installations covering nearly 40,000 villages and serving over 4 million farmers. Currently, the 'e-Choupal' websiteprovides information to farmers across the 10 States of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Over the next 5 years it is ITC's Vision to create a network of 20,000 eChoupals, thereby extending coverage to 100,000 villages representing one sixth of rural India. Supporting the e-Choupal network are ITC's procurement teams, handling agents and contemporary warehousing facilities across India, enabling its Agri Business to source identitypreserved merchandise even at short notice. ITC's processors are handpicked, reliable high quality outfits who ensure hygienic processing and modern packaging. Strict quality control is exercised at each stage to preserve the natural flavour, taste and aroma of the various agri products.

Choupal Saagar

Following the success of the e-Choupal, the Company launched Choupal Saagar, a physical infrastructure hub that comprises collection and storage facilities and a unique rural hypermarket that offers multiple services under one roof. This landmark infrastructure, which has set new benchmarks for rural consumers also incorporates farmer facilitation centres with services such as sourcing, training, soil testing, health clinic, cafeteria, banking, investment services, fuel station etc. 24 'Choupal Saagars' have commenced operations in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. ITC is engaged in scaling up the rural retailing initiative to establish a chain of 100 Choupal Saagars in the near future.

Choupal Fresh

Choupal Fresh, ITC's fresh food wholesale and retail initiative, leverages its extensive backward linkages with farmers and supply chain efficiencies. It focuses on stocking fresh horticulture produce like fresh fruits and vegetables. Choupal Fresh retail stores are currently operational at Hyderabad. The company has also set up a complete cold chain for ensuring the availability of fresh products in the market, besides directly sourcing farm fresh produce from the farmers

Choupal Pradarshan Khet

In line with its mission of improving the quality of life in rural India, ITC's Agri Business has launched a flagship extension programme called 'Choupal Pradarshan Khet' (CPK) or demonstration plots to help farmers enhance farm productivity by adopting agricultural best practices. Started in 2005-06, the crop portfolio includes soya, paddy, cotton, maize, bajra, wheat, gram, mustard, sunflower and potato. This initiative, has covered over 70,000 hectares and has a multiplier impact and reaches out to 1.6 million farmers.

Processed Fruits In line with its strategy of achieving a higher order of value capture, the business also focuses on the value added segment, steadily enhancing its basket of offerings with several new products. These include frozen foods, IQF (individually quick frozen) fruits, niche products like baby-food quality purees and high brix pulp and organic purees. ITC seeks to focus on this segment and exploit the market opportunity for tropical fruits and fruit products, where India has a natural advantage of growing the complete range, including exotic varieties. In Processed Fruits category, ITC exports from HACCP certified plants to Western Europe, North Africa, West Asia, Japan and North America, a wide range of Processed Fruit products made from Mango (Alphonso, Kesar & Totapuri), Guava, Papaya and Pomegranate. ITC is the leading Indian exporter of Organic Fruit Products certified to European (EC 2092/91) and US (NOP) Standards. Fresh Table Grapes & Pomegranates are sourced from ITC's EUREPGAP certified farmer groups & retailed through prominent supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Albert Heijn in Europe and Daiei in Japan.

Marine Products ITC has been a significant exporter of seafood from India since 1971. It exports frozen as well as cooked shrimps and other seafood products to Japan, USA and Europe. Its well-known brands include Gold Ribbon, Blue Ribbon, Aqua Kings, Aqua Bay, Aqua Feast and Peninsular.

A Customer Centric Approach ITC's Agri Business Division continues to use innovation as its core strategy to retain its position as the one-stop shop for sourcing agri-commodities from India. Besides setting benchmarks in quality, reliability and value-added services, ITC is a trendsetter in customer care particularly in commodity trading. Major customers include Cargill, Marubeni, Toepfer, among others, who source agriculture commodities and food products from India. Customers can log onto www.itcabd.com, and readily access information on crop production and forecast, market updates, the latest shipment status and the prevailing foreign exchange rates. Sourcing for ITC ITC's Agri business is progressively aligning its commodity portfolio with the sourcing needs of the Company's Foods business to generate higher order value from its agri procurement infrastructure. The business has commenced procurement of chipstock potatoes, one of the critical raw materials in the manufacture of the Company's 'Bingo!' brand of potato chips. The acquisition of Technico, an Australian company with technology leadership in the production of early generation seed potatoes, helped the business access a ready pipeline of new highyielding varieties of chipstock potato seeds. e-Choupal

The Big Picture: ITC's Agri Business Division, one of India's largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived e-Choupal as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis.

The e-Choupal model has been specifically designed to tackle the challenges posed by the unique features of Indian agriculture, characterised by fragmented farms, weak infrastructure and the involvement of numerous intermediaries, among others. The Value Chain - Farm to Factory Gate:

'e-Choupal' also unshackles the potential of Indian farmer who has been trapped in a vicious cycle of low risk taking ability > low investment > low productivity > weak market orientation > low value addition > low margin > low risk taking ability. This made him and Indian agribusiness sector globally uncompetitive, despite rich & abundant natural resources. Such a market-led business model can enhance the competitiveness of Indian agriculture and trigger a virtuous cycle of higher productivity, higher incomes, enlarged capacity for farmer risk management, larger investments and higher quality and productivity. Further, a growth in rural incomes will also unleash the latent demand for industrial goods so necessary for the continued growth of the Indian economy. This will create another virtuous cycle propelling the economy into a higher growth trajectory.

The Model in Action: Appreciating the imperative of intermediaries in the Indian context, 'e-Choupal' leverages Information Technology to virtually cluster all the value chain participants, delivering the same benefits as vertical integration does in mature agricultural economies like the USA.

'e-Choupal' makes use of the physical transmission capabilities of current intermediaries aggregation, logistics, counter-party risk and bridge financing -while disintermediating them from the chain of information flow and market signals.

With a judicious blend of click & mortar capabilities, village internet kiosks managed by farmers - called sanchalaks - themselves, enable the agricultural community access ready information in their local language on the weather & market prices, disseminate knowledge on scientific farm practices & risk management, facilitate the sale of farm inputs (now with embedded knowledge) and purchase farm produce from the farmers' doorsteps (decision making is now information-based). Real-time information and customised knowledge provided by 'e-Choupal' enhance the ability of farmers to take decisions and align their farm output with market demand and secure quality & productivity. The aggregation of the demand for farm inputs from individual farmers gives them access to high quality inputs from established and reputed manufacturers at fair prices. As a direct marketing channel, virtually linked to the 'mandi' system for price discovery, 'eChoupal' eliminates wasteful intermediation and multiple handling. Thereby it significantly reduces transaction costs. 'e-Choupal' ensures world-class quality in delivering all these goods & services through several product / service specific partnerships with the leaders in the respective fields, in addition to ITC's own expertise. While the farmers benefit through enhanced farm productivity and higher farm gate prices, ITC benefits from the lower net cost of procurement (despite offering better prices to the farmer) having eliminated costs in the supply chain that do not add value.

The Status of Execution: Launched in June 2000, 'e-Choupal', has already become the largest initiative among all Internet-based interventions in rural India. 'e-Choupal' services today reach out to over 4 million farmers growing a range of crops -

soyabean, coffee, wheat, rice, pulses, shrimp - in over 40,000 villages through 6500 kiosks across ten states (Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerela and Tamil Nadu). The problems encountered while setting up and managing these 'e-Choupals' are primarily of infrastructural inadequacies, including power supply, telecom connectivity and bandwidth, apart from the challenge of imparting skills to the first time internet users in remote and inaccessible areas of rural India.

Several alternative and innovative solutions - some of them expensive - are being deployed to overcome these challenges e.g. Power back-up through batteries charged by Solar panels, upgrading BSNL exchanges with RNS kits, installation of VSAT equipment, Mobile Choupals, local caching of static content on website to stream in the dynamic content more efficiently, 24x7 helpdesk etc. Going forward, the roadmap includes plans to integrate bulk storage, handling & transportation facilities to improve logistics efficiencies. As India's 'kissan' Company, ITC has taken care to involve farmers in the designing and management of the entire 'e-Choupal' initiative. The active participation of farmers in this rural initiative has created a sense of ownership in the project among the farmers. They see the 'eChoupal' as the new age cooperative for all practical purposes. This enthusiastic response from farmers has encouraged ITC to plan for the extension of the 'eChoupal' initiative to altogether 15 states across India over the next few years. On the anvil are plans to channelise other services related to micro-credit, health and education through the same 'e-Choupal' infrastructure.

Another path-breaking initiative - the 'Choupal Pradarshan Khet', brings the benefits of agricultural best practices to small and marginal farmers. Backed by intensive research and knowledge, this initiative provides Agri-extension services which are qualitatively superior and involves pro-active handholding of farmers to ensure productivity gains. The services are customised to meet local conditions, ensure timely availability of farm inputs including credit, and provide a cluster of farmer schools for capturing indigenous knowledge. This initiative, which has covered over 70,000 hectares, has a multiplier impact and reaches out to over 1.6 million farmers. IT for the Masses The eChoupal project covers over 35,000 villages in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttaranchal providing millions of farmers with critical information on farming. The Choupal services are being delivered by over 6,000 Sanchalaks and over 17,000 Upa Sanchalaks to these remotest areas. Multiple Benefits Farmers can look at weather forecasts, order fertiliser and herbicide, and consult an agronomist by e-mail when their crops turn yellow. At some eChoupals they can even buy life insurance, apply for loans and also check their children s exam results. While much has been written about the social benefits of ITC s eChoupal, the matter of the fact is that the project was conceptualised with a pure business focus to create farmer communities in villages to facilitate sourcing of high-quality farm produce for the company s fast growing agribusiness. Better Payment In IT parlance, eChoupal is an intelligent blend of applications like CRM and supply chain management. For instance, by helping the farmer identify and control his inputs and farming practices, and by paying more for better quality, ITC has been able to preserve the source and improve the quality of produce. The project was built using .NET. The first implementation of a Soya Choupal took eight months but later extensions like the Aqua Choupal for aquamarine farmers took between six and eight weeks. Today eChoupal is a flexible, easy to deploy solution. ITC Infotech provided an in-house team of 25 to 30 people in the initial stage and this gradually came down to around 20 people, and finally a five-member team to maintain the project.

The portfolio of commodities sourced has been vastly expanded to include maize, barley, sorghum, and pulses, and the sourcing cycle is extended almost around the year. In the commodities market, these two factors are helping ITC create a definite competitive advantage. The Problems Initially we thought that we would work with DoT to upgrade rural telephone exchanges. The department was proactive in upgrading many rural exchanges to electronic ones. After 15 months we found that the experience was not satisfactory, explained Babu. Power cuts in rural areas can run for eight to 10 hours. ITC even went so far as to provide gensets at a few locations hoping to spur DoT to doing the same. It didn t work out and in 2001 ITC shifted its focus to using Ku Band VSATs. Power remained a problem and it was solved by using solar panels. The EChoupal Roadmap ITC now plans to leverage its eChoupal infrastructure to sell third-party products, provide rural market research services, and in the social sector, to provide services like health advisories and enable e-governance. ITC eChoupal has embarked in on providing best of the class retailing and shopping experiences to the rural consumers by building retail shopping complexes that provide integrated facilities under one roof. Under the brand Choupal Sagar, these shopping complexes house a procurement centre, retail store, food court, farmer facility centre and healthcare clinic. In healthcare services, a pilot project has been launched along with leading corporate healthcare service providers, to extend reliable and quality healthcare services to the remotest villages. Several health camps conducted during the pilots are encouraging and the project is in the midst of scaling up to other locations. ITC eChoupal is currently piloting delivery of quality education services to the rural areas leveraging the physical and digital infrastructure developed for commodities sourcing and consumer retail services. AwardRural

Initiative taken by ITC to fulfill their corporate social responsibility and its impact on Indian economy
Introduction Corporate Social responsibility means devising corporate strategies and building a business with the society s needs in mind. Social responsibility should be impaired in business decision making and it also implies an obligation to deal with social problems that business organizations

are believed to have towards the society in which they function. Businesses have far reaching effects not only on the economic well being of the nation but also upon its social fabric. Business organizations have become the most significant social institutions having the power to influence the lives of the people. While emphasizing that, the concept of social responsibility is fundamentally an ethical concept, Satish Modh explains that after Independence, policy makers suggested that companies use a part of their accumulated wealth to eradicate social problems. The concept of social responsibility in India emerged as direct response to the policies of the Government making India a socialistic democratic state. As the farmers and villagers of India are the main customers for ITC Ltd and Hindusthan Unilever Ltd (HUL) the corporate are now seriously involved in imparting the knowledge to use modern methods and tools for their financial as well as social development. This rural initiative of the corporate is beneficial to the rural population and the corporate as well. The corporates are fulfilling the social responsibility by investing in the implementation of the program in the places where their product potential is substantial and a large network is developed over the years. It also helps the corporate to win the confidence of the villagers and improves their brand image. ITC e- Choupal: ITC s International Business Division one of the India s largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived e-Choupal as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis. The e-Choupal model has been specifically designed to tackle the challenges posed by the fragmented farms of Indian Agriculture characterized by weak infrastructure and the involvement of numerous intermediaries among others. e-Choupal also unshackles the potential of Indian farmer who has been trapped in a vicious cycle of low risk taking ability, low investment, weak market orientation, low value addition, low margins and all this leading to further lowering of risk taking ability making him globally uncompetitive. For a country which is having very rich and abundant natural resources, hard working and efficient farmers it is unfortunate that Indian agricultural business remains globally uncompetitive. It is identified that the main problem is low risk taking ability of Indian farmer and his dependence on the money lender for his farm activity. He needs quality inputs such as fertilizers, chemicals, good farming practices and timely information about minimum sale price ( MSP ) for his product, weather data and insurance to safeguard his crop. Whereas the inputs for farming activity are supplied by Agri-input retailer the information required to take a decision about the crop is provided by the department of Agriculture of State Government through Village level workers (VLW s). In the traditional practice the farm output reaches the processor through the Mandi system or the Money lender which end up in very low margins for the farmer. The modern practice of

going through a trader, broker and processor helps the farmer to get a fairly good margin for his products. High margins will enable the farmer to enhance his investment in the farming activity for higher productivity. Such a market led business model can enhance competitiveness of Indian agriculture and trigger a virtuous cycle of higher productivity, higher incomes, enlarged capacity for farmer risk management, larger investments and higher quality coupled with higher productivity. Further a growth in rural incomes will also unleash the latent demand for industrial goods so necessary for the continued growth of the Indian economy. This will create another virtuous cycle propelling the economy into a higher growth trajectory. Operation and benefits e-Choupal provides real- time information and customized knowledge to making use of the physical transmission of data about the capabilities of current intermediaries, logistics, bridge financing. This enhances the ability of the farmers to take decisions and align their farm output with market demand thereby securing quality and productivity. The aggregation of the demand for farm inputs from individual farmers gives them access to high quality inputs from established and reputed manufactures at fair prices. As a direct marketing channel virtually linked to the mandi system for price discovery e-Choupal eliminates wasteful intermediation and multiple handling. This helps in reducing the transaction costs. e-Choupal ensures world class quality in delivering all these goods and services through several product /service specific partnerships with the leaders in the respective fields in addition to ITC s own expertise. While farmers benefit through enhanced farm productivity and higher farm gate prices ITC benefits from the lower net cost of procurement by eliminating unnecessary costs in the supply chain. ITC also offers better prices to the farmer compared to competition in the field. Sanchalaks : are the village internet kiosks managed by farmers for their use to enable the agricultural community access ready information in their local language on the weather and market prices. It helps them to know more about the scientific farm practices and risk management. It also facilitates the sale of farm products and purchase farm inputs from their door steps. The status of implementation and benefits: Launched in June 2000, e-Choupal has become the largest initiative among all Internet based interventions in rural India. e-Choupal services today are used by 4.0 million farmers growing a range of crops such as soybean, coffee, wheat, rice, pulses and shrimp in 40,000 villagers through 6500 internet kiosks operated in nine states (Madhya Pradesh, Haryana , Uttaranchal , Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharastra, Rajasthan and Kerala ). The problem encountered while setting up and managing these e-choupals are primarily of infrastructure inadequacies, including power supply, telecom connectivity and band width, apart from the challenge of imparting skills to the first time internet users in remote and

inaccessible areas of rural India. Several alternative and innovative solutions are being used to overcome the challenges, power back - up through batteries charged by solar panels, upgrading BSNL exchanges with RNS kits, installation of VSAT equipment, Mobile Choupals, local caching of static content on website to stream in the dynamic content more efficiently. They have also provided round the clock help desks for the benefit of farmers. ITC has taken care to involve farmers in the designing and management of the entire, e-Choupal initiative. The active participation of farmers in their rural initiative has created a sense of ownership in the project among the farmers. They see the e-Choupal as the new age co operative for development. An international study has shown that the farmers income have increased by 20%. The productivity has increased from 14% to 29% by using e-Chaupal services. Recognition: (1) ITC is the first Indian company and second in the world to win the prestigious Development Gateway Award in 2005 which recognizes ITC s e-Chaupal as the most exemplary contribution to the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development priorities like poverty reduction, its scale and replicability, sustainability and transparency. (2) E-Chaupal was declared as one of India s best Innovations and won the Innovation for India Award-2006 for ITC. (3) ITC has won the Golden Peacock Awards for Corporate Social responsibility in Asia in the year 2007, the award for CSR in Emerging Economies 2005 and Excellence in Corporate governance in the same year. These awards have been instituted by the Institute of Directors, New Delhi in association with the world council for Corporate Governance and Centre for Corporate Governance. (4) The Corporate Award for Social responsibility 2008 from, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in recognition of its exemplary initiatives in implementing Integrated watershed development programmes across seven states in India. (5) United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO ) Award at the International conference on sharing Agribusiness solutions 2008 at Cairo for ITC s exemplary initiatives in agribusiness through e-Chaupal. ITC s agribusiness was adjudged the winner out of 120 solutions presented by 65 countries for providing innovative solutions including updated information on crops in remote Indian villages. ITC s e-Chaupal the largest rural digital infrastructure in the world today covers over 40,000 villages and benefits over 4 million farmers. This distribution network, comprising of digital and human infrastructure, not only empowers farmers with information but has also helped transform rural communities into vibrant economic organizations by co-creating thriving markets. Comparison with other Indian companies: TERI has judged ITC as the first company for the corporate awards on CSR in 2008. The second prize went to Cairn India Ltd for their efforts in launching the Micro Vendor Development

Program by creating sustainable lively hood opportunities. This independent evaluation of ITC e-Chaupal by TERI which is a Non Government Organization ( NGO ) shows that it is one of the best initiatives taken by a corporate in India as a part of their CSR. Other Indian Companies which have won TERI awards for their significant contribution over the years towards fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility are. 1) HZL 2) ONGC 3) Tata Tea 4) Mahindra& Mahindra 5) Numaligarh Refineries Ltd. ITC has consistently improved its performance by steadily expanding its e Chaupal program to different states in India over the past five years and won the farmers appreciation in India. Many developing countries are now following similar initiatives for the development of agribusiness. Future plans of ITC: (1) To improve the logistic efficiency ITC is planning to integrate bulk storage, handling and transportation facilities. (2) Extension of the e-Choupal initiative to 15 states across the country. (3) To channelize other services related to micro - credit health and education through the same e-Choupal infrastructure. ITC estimates a payback period of seven years on its total investments in the e Chaupal initiative with full bouquet of services to the farmers and rural customers. ITC s philosophy for Rural Development: ITC believes that an effective growth strategy for our nation must address the needs of rural India which is home to 75 % of our population. It is imperative to ensure that India s economic growth is inclusive, embracing its villages, so as to free millions of our disadvantaged citizens from the indignity of poverty. ITC has partnered the Indian farmer for close to a century. It is now engaged in elevating this partnership to a new height by using information technology eChoupal initiative. ITC's e-Choupal has won numerous awards:
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United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Award at the international conference on Sharing Innovative Agribusiness Solutions 2008at Cairo for ITC's exemplary initiatives in agri business through the e-Choupal. The Ashoka - Changemakers 'Health For All' Award 2006 for the Rural Health Services model for delivery of health services through the e-Choupals.

The Stockholm Challenge 2006. This award is for using information technology for the economic development of rural communities. Innovation for India Award 2006 for ITC e-Choupal in the Social Innovations category for business organizations. The first of its kind in India, based on parameters of number of lives impacted, degree of impact on organization and environment, uniqueness, leverage of resources and whether it was scalable and sustainable, e-Choupal was declared as one of 'India's Best Innovations'. The Development Gateway Award 2005 (previously known as the Petersberg Prize) for the trailblazing e-Choupal initiative. ITC is the first Indian company and the second in the world to win this prestigious award. The 'Golden Peacock Global Award for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Emerging Economies for 2005'. The Company received this award for its eChoupal and social and farm forestry initiatives that are impactfully transforming lives and landscapes in rural India. The Corporate Social Responsibility Award 2004 from The Energy and Resources Institute(TERI) for its e-Choupal initiative. The Award provides impetus to sustainable development and encourages ongoing social responsibility processes within the corporate sector. The inaugural 'World Business Award', instituted jointly by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the HRH Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). This award recognises companies who have made significant efforts to create sustainable livelihood opportunities and enduring wealth in developing countries. The 'Enterprise Business Transformation Award' for Asia Pacific (Apac), instituted by Infosys Technologies and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. PC Quest's IT Implementation Award in the 'Best Project' category. The Golden Peacock Innovation Award 2004. The NASSCOM award for 'Best IT User in FMCG' in 2003. The Award is a recognition of ITC's successful integration of its IT usage with its business processes. The Seagate Intelligent Enterprise of the Year 2003 Award, for the most innovative usage of Information Technology.

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References: (1) http://www.echoupal.com/. (2) http://www.hllshakti.com/. (3) Business Ethics and Corporate Governance by Satish Modh, Macmillan, 2005 . (4) Innovate to empower the Agriculture an address by Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, President of India during the national symposium to commemorate 60th year of independence on 05-062007 at New Delhi.