In contrast to this, ITC set up a system that empowered farmers in two ways: by providing them with real time information on prices, and giving them alternative selling channel, direct to ITC. It did this by setting up computer kiosks called e-Choupals, in villages. In each village it recruited a farmer to serve as its representative, called a sanchalak. ITC set up a computer in each sanchalaks home and through its web portal provided information on commodity prices from the previous day at each mandi in the state and at its own procurement center. ITC had reconfigured the traditional procurement system. It introduced a hub and spoke system. At the spokes were the e-Choupals, which enabled decentralized price discovery
and selling in villages. Delivery and procurement were centralized at procurement hubs, which included storage warehouses. ITCs procurement hubs were large, clean and well maintained. Farmers were able to wait in the shade and had access to cool drinking water and toilets. They had electronic weigh scales to avoid inaccuracy. The farmers were paid in cash rather than through deferred payment. ITC paid the farmers rates which were at least equal to or higher than the mandi price. This reconfiguration helped save farmers and ITCs costs from 9.25 ($/MT) and 8.38 to 3.00 and 5.38 respectively. ITC also introduced the concept of rural mini malls which sold a variety of products and services. It had various partnerships such as with the Apollo Hospital, who provided the mall with an Apollo certified medical doctor. Some of the existing procurement hubs were converted to rural mini malls depending on their feasibility.
ITC was target the BOP, which included people with lower individual purchasing capacity and limited available solution. They had following key notes on the strategic planning: Target the potential buyers and create a healthy environment for the buyers. Improving infrastructure and maintain a fair price policy to gain buyers confidence. Setup local solution and infuse local representative to manage the operations
With the target segment in mind ITC tailored a project named e-Choupal in villages and recruited a farmer to serve as its representative called Sanchalak. They maintained transparency by providing technological power to commodity pricing and gaining farmers confidence as it was setup in each Sanchalak home. It flourished to around 6500 e-Choupal kiosk a covering 3.5 million farmers in nine different states. With the technology and farmers confidence in place, ITC had to setup a centralized procurement hub other than the traditional Mandi.ITC gave price protection to the farmer by giving them the best prevailing market price and that too in cash exceedingly cutting out risk in credit business which prevailed in the Mandi. The entire procurement was done by Samyojak, who were commission agent to the ITCs procurement channel. Farmers were supported by excellent amenities and facilities too like cool drinking water and toilets, shade in the waiting area, accurate electronic weighting machines, etc. Since rural people are daily wage earners, they rely mostly on day to day consumption of goods which demand a small quantity packing unit for ITC. They are more concerned about per-use cost instead of the overall cost of the product and associated savings. They prefer to buy products in small packets and a single digit price tag. ITC broadened its rural distribution by building up mini-mall called Choupal Saagars at some of its procurement hub, in order to sell a wide variety of product and services catering to the villagers as a whole. Some of the services offered were packaged consumer goods, agricultural ingredients and inputs, health, insurance and banking services etc. Local representatives and Sanchalaks played an important role in selling/ promoting and creating awareness about the product and services.