Farm & Social Forestry Outcomes:

Achievements in all three initiatives have been very encouraging.

a) Research and Development :107 fast growing and high yielding, disease resistant clones of Eucalyptus and 12 clones of Subabul plants are being produced on a commercial scale. The productivity of ‘Bhadrachalam’ clones ranges between 20-58 m3/hectare/year, which is 3 to 9 times more productive than normal seedlings. 23 site-specific clones (includes 86) adapted to problematic alkaline and saline soils have also been developed so far.

b) Farm Forestry : The commercial viability of these clones & subabul selected varieties is evident from the fact upto 2005 we covered 35,000 hectares. 10,000 farmers have become our partners and planted over 10,000 hectares.

c) Social Forestry : Since its inception in 2001-02 covered 6,500 poor tribal families, converted 1730 hectares of private wastelands into productive farmlands and planted 4.5 million saplings of different species.
The social forestry is integrated with watershed development programme and also was initiated by ITC in the year 2001. It seeks to achieve two critical objectives: water conservation and soil enrichment. The company organised farmers into water user groups that plan and build water harvesting structures like check dams, percolation tanks and farm ponds. These structures financed by ITC are providing critical irrigation over 8000 ha of drought prone tracts. Over the next decade, ITC aims to bring soil and moisture conservation to 80,000 ha of dry lands under this programme.

d) Environment : Apart from other well-known consequences of such a large-scale greening effort, these plantations have the potential to sequester 0.58 million tonnes of carbon, thus mitigating GHGs.

e) Farm Incomes : The Plantation programme has introduced an alternative means of livelihood for the rural community. The average net income to farmer from clonal plantation is about Rs.25, 000/ha/yr under rain-fed condition and Rs.40, 000/ha/yr with irrigation on a four-year rotation cycle. This income is significantly higher compared to traditional crops grown in the operational area as under rainfed Rs.12, 500/ha/yr and Rs.20, 000/ha/yr under irrigation is realised by the farmer from traditional crops. Moreover, the higher yield from clonal plantations comes at much lower risks. The impact of clonal technology can be measured from this fact alone that since 1992 when meagre 24 ha of land was under cultivation, the situation has drastically reversed in 2005 (Exhibit 3). This year, there is nearly a gate crash by the farmers to obtain the planting material because of bountiful rains. In spite of increasing production capacity by 16 mn plants, the company is not able to meet the demand - such is the popularity of ‘ITC Bhadrachalam’ clones.

Environmental Gains

Clonal plantations have additionally been able to mitigate environmental degradation on a large scale. Apart from other well-known consequences of such a large-scale greening effort, these plantations have the potential to sequester millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide a potential Green House Gas (GHG). The estimated CO2 mitigation for first commitment period ending by 2012 works out to 3.9 crore tonnes of CERs from 1,46,132 ha plantations valuing to Rs.531 crores approximately (Exhibit 6).

                                                                                   EXHIBIT 6

		Year Area (ha.) Total Biomass (MT) Carbon Seq. (MT) CO2 Reduction (MT) CER Value @ Rs.135/MT 1996 716 4296 2148 7862 1061366 1997 725 11280 5640 20642 2786684 1998 1096 32058 16029 58667 7920028 1999 1271 55060 27530 100760 13602533 2000 1456 130383 65192 238601 32211200 2001 2197 138933 69467 254248 34323483 2002 4856 225027 112513 411799 55592812 2003 6775 278824 139412 510247 68883361 2004 9937 386713 193357 707685 95537507 2005 12100 525671 262835 961978 129866989 2006 15000 1079718 539859 1975884 266744273 2007 15000 1471153 735577 2692210 363448388 2008 15000 2131403 1065702 3900467 526563112 2009 15000 2643991 1321996 4838504 653197985 2010 15000 3687659 1843830 6748417 911036245 2011 15000 4056093 2028047 7422651 1002057855 2012 15000 4645316 2322658 8500928 1147625278 Total: 146132 21503579 10751789 39351549 5312459098 Fig in Crores 2.2 1.1 3.9 531.2

Apart from the innumerable benefits of afforestation, clonal plantation directly contributes to in-situ moisture conservation, groundwater recharge and significant reduction in topsoil losses due to wind and water erosion.

Furthermore, as a result of the leaf-litter from multi-species plantations and the promotion of leguminous inter-crops between rows, depleted soils are being constantly enriched, making these farmlands more productive. In the near future, the increase in soil fertility will lead to a decline in fertiliser and pesticide usage, thus reducing the pollution of groundwater sources through seeping of such chemicals.


Awards & Recognition

Unit Bhadrachalam of ITC-PSPD is awarded seven prestigious and coveted awards for pioneering clonal technology R & D for plantations and environmental amelioration.

  CSE 3 Leaves Award 2004

  Greetech Environment Excellence Gold Award 2004

  Golden Peacock Award 2003

  Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award 1997

  Rajeev Gandhi Parti Bhoomi Mitra Award 1994-96

  CII R& D Award 1995

  FAPCCI R & D Award 1991-92