ITC plans rural supermalls at its hubs  ( March '3,2004, HBL)

SHOPPING malls are unlikely to remain a purely urban phenomenon for long. Come April, ITC's first rural supermarket will commence operations a few kilometres away from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

The supermarket would be unique in the sense that it would house just about everything under the sun — from soaps to colour televisions, from two-wheelers to even tractors. The company is also in talks with service companies to retail banking and insurance products at the supermarkets.

"We will be setting up four such malls this year as a pilot — two each in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. In the long term, if the concept takes off well, we have plans to set up 80 such `malls' in the two States," Mr Ravindra Kumar J, Business Development Manager, International Business Division, ITC, said.

Though not providing details about the investment in the project, Mr Kumar said that it would run into several crores.

The supermarkets are coming up at ITC's `hubs', where farmers can come to sell their produce. The hubs are a part of ITC's e-choupal project, wherein farmers can log in to a Web portal and check the trading prices for a particular day. They can then choose to come and sell the crops at ITC's hubs.

ITC's first hub-cum-supermarket, which is coming up near Bhopal, is on eight acres of land. Apart from the mall, it would contain godowns for storing the wheat and soyabean and also for stocking products retailed at the mall, a petrol pump and a parking lot for 160 tractors.

ITC is confident about the success of the project. "During the peak season, a hub sees a traffic of about 200 tractors per day on an average, as farmers come to sell their crops at the hubs. To attract footfalls during the lean season, ITC plans to organise various activities and events including melas. Secondly, the hubs are strategically located to attract suburban crowds as well," Mr Kumar said.