ITC investing Rs 1,800 crore in Bengal across multiple sectors in 2-3 yrs
Times of India | 28 January 2025
Kolkata: Diversified conglomerate ITC Ltd is strengthening its ties with Bengal.
Besides setting up a global AI hub of ITC Infotech in New Town, the company is investing in a slew of projects that include doubling the number of hotels here. The total investment in these projects would be around Rs 1,800 crore in the next 2-3 years, a source said. Apart from IT and hotels, the segments would include manufacturing and agriculture.
ITC Ltd, which committed and implemented investments of Rs 7,500 crore in Bengal in the last 7-8 years, has also set up a new entity called ITC Integrated Business Services Ltd, which is based in Kolkata. Chairman Sanjiv Puri told TOI that the new company had been formed to serve as a pan-ITC hub to integrate back-end operations for the entire group.
"The entity has been designed to serve back-end operations for the entire ITC group in India now and, going forward, it will serve global operations of ITC Infotech. The company has already started its operations in Kolkata with 200-300 employees," he said.
Elaborating on the plan for ITC Hotels, Puri said the group has six operating hotels in the state and the number would be doubled in the next 2-3 years.
The six properties are ITC Royal Bengal, ITC Sonar, Storii by ITC Hotels Devasom Resort & Spa and Fortune Park Panchwati in Kolkata, Fortune Park Pushpanjali in Durgapur and Fortune Resort Kalimpong.
The new hotels are expected to come up in Siliguri, Kalimpong, Santiniketan, and near Kolkata as well. "It would mostly be managed hotels," Puri said. Incidentally, 50% of ITC's hotels' portfolio is managed hotels, which would go up to two-thirds in the future.
Speaking on manufacturing presence in the state, Puri said in Bengal, ITC had 17 manufacturing facilities. "Once capacities in these facilities are utilised fully, further investment opportunities would be explored. In Panchla, the company invested significantly recently and is expanding the number of production lines from five to eight. ITC also commenced production at its state-of-the-art facility for personal care products," he added.
The company is also putting up an integrated logistics hub in Panchla. "We are adding capacity in Tribeni Tissues, which is a very old facility here," Puri said.
Commenting on agro plans, the ITC chairman said the company was working with over 1.7 lakh farmers across agri value chains like milk, potato, wheat and others in Bengal. ITC is also launching ITCMAARS, its "phygital" ecosystem in the state, with the aspiration to cover 5 lakh farmers with 100 FPOs.
BSE, NSE listing on Jan 29
The equity shares of ITC Hotels, the demerged outfit from ITC, will be listed in BSE and NSE from Jan 29. ITC disclosed this to the stock exchanges on Monday. The hotel business of the conglomerate was demerged earlier this year and got necessary approvals.