E-CHAUPAL

• e-choupal is a Hindi word which means “village meeting place” . Market is a meeting place where vendors and customers come together to do transactions. e-choupal is a virtual market place where farmers can transact directly with a processor and can realize better price for their produce.

• Idea Generation

• The idea of creating and leveraging an electronic market place came from the brainstorming session done by senior executives of ITC-IBD.

• Idea Initiation

• The challenge of servicing the changing needs of global customers, competing with the aggressive transnationals trading behemoths in a low margin agri-commodity business, operating from a high cost economy like India and looking for alternative markets in the period of recession were the basic business driver behind the new business model.
• Helps enhance farm productivity by
• Disseminating latest information on district level weather forecasts for short & medium terms
• Best practices in farming
• Supply of quality inputs (seed,herbicide, fertilizer, pesticides etc) in the village itself
• Helps improve price realization for farm produce by
• · Making available live data on markets viz. Location / Buyer wise prices offered.
• International market prices of relevant agri-commodities.
• Historical & Up-to-date information on supply & demand.
• Expert opinion on expected future price movements.
• Helps minimize transaction costs in marketing farm produce by
• · Buying output at the farmers’ doorstep
• · Through transparent pricing & weight management practices
• e-Choupal's objective was to be achieved through the application of technology, so internet was used as the main component of implementation project. 
• For building trust among the farmers towards the activities of ITC it was essential the interface between farmers and company is from the village community itself and not somebody from outside.
• Sanchalak was selected on the basis of their education, age, family size, caste, political lineage and other affiliation.
• e-Choupal has been most successful initiative to wire rural India and to involve the farmers in learning.
• The success of e-Choupal has given new lessons to the corporate in the India and abroad.
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