ITC feels that renewable plantations in 10 million hectares could produce as much as 20,000MW of power, almost one-fourth of the total capacity addition proposed in the 11th Five Year Plan from conventional sources.
Y C Deveshwar, chairman of ITC Limited, speaking at the company’s 97th annual general meeting (AGM), on the theme ‘agro-forestry potential’, said ITC was eager to participate in agro-forestry using skills which had enabled it report foreign exchange earnings over the last decade of nearly $3.2 billion, of which agri exports constituted 60 per cent.
In the short term, though, ITC would also continue to invest the cash generated by its cigarettes business in businesses like hotels, paper mills and lifestyle retail besides establishing leadership in almost every FMCG category.
The information technology arm of ITC was looking to acquire companies in the US operating in related categories like travel and hospitality in an effort to build revenues and expand its client base.
Deveshwar dwelt at great length on India’s degraded wastelands of 60 million hectares, including 33 million hectares of degraded forest lands, could be converted into renewable agro-forestry resources which could generate 1000MW from every half a million hectares planted.
The programme would provide wood for door and window frames, flooring, wooden cabinets etc would mean sales of wood products valued at $3 billion by 2010-12, used in the more than 500 million sq.ft of realty expected to be built in India.
The Indian furniture market was estimated at $8 billion using mostly wood and India was likely to face a wood deficit of upto 70 million cubic metres by 2020.
Agro-forestry would check climate change as greening 10 million hectares meant 500 million ton of carbon dioxide compensatory sequestration for 500 million MWh of electricity generated from fossil fuels besides creating sustainable livelihoods for nearly 100 million people.
The Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change and its National Mission for a Green India envisaged afforestation of 6 million hectares to enhance forest and tree cover to 33 per cent with initial corpus of Rs 6000 crore and total estimated cost of nearly Rs 70,000 crore, indicating need for corporate participation in renewable agro-forestry, he added.
