Environmental Performance

Water Management

Water Conservation

In 2011-12, ITC units withdrew 29.02 million Kilolitres (KL) of freshwater, (29.36 million KL in 2010-11), a reduction of nearly 1.2% over the previous year, despite significant growth in almost all businesses. This was made possible only by focused efforts by all Units through water audits, benchmarking and adoption of leading practices to achieve the lowest possible specific water consumption (water required per unit of production).

Water sources

Of the 29.02 million KL of fresh water, 80.4% of water was sourced from river water, 17.2% from ground water sources and only 2.4% from municipal and other water sources.

This year, of the total fresh water withdrawal by ITC, the Paperboards & Specialty Paper mills at Bhadrachalam, Kovai & Tribeni alone accounted for 91.8% of the total fresh water withdrawal by ITC.

Bhadrachalam Unit

India’s largest integrated paper and paperboards mill, accounted for 75% of the total fresh water intake in ITC. While the production volumes have increased by more than three times between 1998-99 and 2011-12, the fresh water intake of the mill has increased by only 13% during the same period.

In 2011-12, the Bhadrachalam Unit’s freshwater intake was 48.2 Kilolitre per tonne of product, a significant reduction of 4.5% over the last year (50.5 KL/tonne in 2010-11). It is worth mentioning that this surpasses the proposed benchmark standard of 63 KL/tonne as set by the National Productivity Council (NPC), for large scale integrated pulp and paper mills. (Reference: Final Report on Development of Guidelines for Water conservation in Pulp and Paper Sector by NPC, New Delhi, March 2006).