KOLKATA : Footwear major Bata India is planning to open around 100 outlets during this financial year despite the COVID-19 outbreak, an official said on Wednesday.The shoemaker, which currently has around 1,500 stores across India, plans to add 500 outlets by 2023 to strengthen its network in semi-urban and rural markets, he said."We will open around 100 stores this year and 80 per cent of these outlets will be opened through a franchise model in tier-II and tier-III cities," Bata India chairman Ashwani Windlass told PTI over the phone.The network expansion will be executed mostly in the rural areas where economic performance has been comparatively better than in urban areas during the current COVID-19 crisis, another company official.