ITC plans to invest Rs. 2,500 crores to set up five new plants in different parts of the country, including a state-of-the-art packaging plant at Nadiad in Gujarat, over the next two years. ITC chairman Sanjiv Puri said apart from the packaging plant at Nadiad, a spice plant will come up at Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, a nicotine derivatives manufacturing facility at Mysuru in Karnataka, a food processing plant in Medak district of Telangana, and a consumer goods plant at Uluberia town of West Bengal.
“Our focus is to connect 10 million farmers across the country, including Gujarat by forming 4,000 Farmer Producers Organisations (FPOs) across 20 value chains. For this purpose, ITC has launched its super app Meta Market for Advanced Agricultural Services (ITCMAARS) to provide agricultural and allied services to farmers on a digital platform. The app has been launched in seven states with over 75,000 farmers grouped in 200-plus FPOs under four value chains – wheat, paddy, soya, and chili,” Puri added.
He said that last year, ITC procured 3,000 crores worth of agro commodities from Gujarat. The company is in the process of investing 1,000 crores in the state, including the newly launched premium hotel in Ahmedabad as well as the upcoming packaging plant at Nadiad, Puri said.
Talking about the state of the domestic hospitality business, Puri said after the pandemic, India’s hospitality industry is recovering fast which is clearly visible in the Q1 results of leading hotel chains. “India has nearly 26 million outbound tourists and 10 million inbound tourists. Due to the pandemic situation, many outbound tourists preferred domestic travel, which gave a much-needed boost to the local hospitality industry,” he said.
