ITC is exploring the possibility of using land around temples, the railways and national highways in order to expand its afforestation programme. These lands would not be owned by ITC.
“We are in talks with temple committees in Telangana,” Sanjay Singh, CEO of ITC’s paperboards, paper and speciality papers division told The Hindu during an interaction. “We are also in touch with the Indian Railways to utilise the stretches of land that they have, for our afforestation programme.”
ITC is already partnering the National Highway Authority of India for implementing the National Green Highways Mission, which envisages roadside plantations along 1 lakh km of national highways.
A pilot project is under way to plant trees along highways NH44 and NH40, totalling about 500 acres. There is also scope for using degraded forest lands, according to Mr. Singh.
This fibre-security initiative is part of ITC’s four-pronged strategy to stay ahead in the intensely competitive business of paper and paperboards. It has four paper-making units including an integrated unit. Three units are in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and one in West Bengal.
ITC’s pulpwood requirement is largely sourced from plantations under its social and farm-forestry programmes. It enables import-substitution, creates farmers’ livelihoods and rejuvenates the environment through carbon sequestration, Mr. Singh said. The farmers can sell the wood fibre to anyone.
‘60,000 acres more’
Under this afforestation programme, ITC has ‘greened’ more than 6.2 lakh acres in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, a state it has entered recently. “We need an additional 60,000-80,000 acres,” Mr. Singh said. “This initiative has generated 113 million mandays of employment” chairman Y.C. Deveshwar had said at the last annual general meeting.
ITC encourages mainly tribal and marginalised farmers to take up forestry programmes close to its factories, to supply wood.
Mr. Singh said that while it took about four years to grow a full tree, wood is taken in a manner such that it can be “harvested from each tree for 15 years before a new one is required to be planted.” Mr. Singh said that ITC used inputs from its R&D unit to develop and supply to the farmers high-quality, disease-resistant seedlings to increase yields.
The paper division’s product range includes cigarette tissues, FMCG cartons, electrical insulation papers, decorative laminate base and writing and printing papers. In paper boards, its products range from 100% virgin food-grade boards to recycled boards. Together, the division’s four units have a 7 lakh tonne capacity.
For the second quarter, this division clocked an 18% growth in profits at ₹274.2 crore although turnover was hit by subdued demand in the FMCG and legal cigarette industries as well as due to zero-duty imports under Free Trade Agreements with ASEAN countries and imports from China, the company had said.
