ITC has created an attractive economic opportunity for farmers like Chandrashekhar to grow high-yielding disease-resistant clonal saplings ('Bhadrachalam clones'). The Company's path-breaking farm forestry programme is aimed at creating a sustainable source of cost-effective fibrous raw materials for its paper and paperboards business. A product of the Company's visionary biotechnology-based R & D, this pioneering project has already provided farmers 12 million saplings, bringing over 7,000 hectares under plantation in rural Andhra Pradesh. The Bhadrachalam clonal propagation programme is being further accelerated to green 20,000 hectares over the next five years with diverse pulpwood species like Eucalyptus, Subabul, Casuarina and Bamboo. The programme holds the potential to create 40,000 jobs in the most backward areas of Andhra Pradesh. ITC has also launched a unique social forestry initiative that helps tribals convert private wastelands into productive plantations. In just two years since its commencement, nearly 2,000 hectares of wasteland have already been transformed. ITC's strategic intent is to source its entire pulpwood requirements from these sustainable plantations, thus conserving precious forest resources.