ITC enters into 83 public-private partnerships to scale up community development progammes

Multi-business conglomerate ITC Ltd is rapidly scaling up its community development programmes and has forged 83 public-private partnerships (PPP) with several state governments and government bodies as part of the initiative, according to a company statement.

ITC has also entered into 24 technical collaborations with national and global organisations, besides working with 82 NGOs apart from thematic experts for village-based institutions and other partnerships.

Commenting on the steps, ITC Ltd Executive Vice-President and Head, Social Investments Ashesh Ambasta said,"Given the sheer magnitude of development challenges, ITC believes in the power of collaborations to accelerate social development in order to produce deep and enduring impacts at scale."

Accordingly, multi-stakeholder partnerships are at the core of ITC's 'Mission Sunehra Kal' programme, he added.

ITC has been and continues to actively collaborate with the government for scale, with apex technical and research institutions to remain contemporary, with NGOs for effective mobilisation, and with grassroots institutions for local knowledge and sustainability, Ambasta said.

"This provides the foundation on which to spearhead transformative social initiatives that significantly benefit the poor and marginalised," he said.

The company said it signed six partnership agreements during 2020-21 with various state governments for soil and moisture conservation and education besides working with NITI Aayog for improving agriculture and allied sectors in 27 aspirational districts in eight states which covered 2.5 million farmers in five seasons.

The partnerships for the community development programmes have enabled ITC's Social Investments Programme to raise a total of Rs 81.76 crore in 2020-21 by way of community contributions and external sources for almost all the important interventions across all projects, it added.