MUMBAI: ITC e-Choupal has been shortlisted among the six worldwide finalists for the Development Gateway Award 2005.

The winner of the $100,000 award, which recognises outstanding achievement in using Information Technology (IT) to improve people's lives in developing countries, will be announced in September..

The six finalists have been chosen from 135 nominations.

ITC has earlier won the inaugural World Business Award instituted in support of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals and also the Wharton-Infosys Enterprise Business Transformation Award 2004 for the Asia-Pacific region.
 
 
ITC e-Choupal empowers over 3.5 million farmers by enabling them to readily access crop-specific, customised and comprehensive information in their native village habitat and language. Vernacular websites relating to each agricultural crop that ITC deals in, created by the company, provide ready and real-time information to even marginal farmers on the prevailing Indian and international prices and price trends for their crop, expert knowledge on best farming practices, and micro-level weather forecast. This significantly improves the farmer's decision-making ability, thereby helping him better align his agricultural produce to market demand, secure better quality, productivity and improved price discovery.
 
 
ITC e-Choupal also creates a two-way direct marketing channel for rural India, eliminating wasteful intermediation and multiple handling, thus significantly reducing transaction costs and improving logistical efficiency.

Over the next decade, the ITC e-Choupal network aims to cover over 100,000 Indian villages, representing one sixth of rural India, and create more than 10 million e-farmers.