Dr.Verghese Kurien A man who worked under 10 presidents and popularly known as the father of 'White revolution' in India, was born on 26 November in Kerala to a Christian family. After completing his graduation from the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur in 1946, he applied for a government of India scholarship and was interested in nuclear physics but got scholarship in dairy engineering, an irrelevant domain. But due to family pressure, he didn't do much in that field and sent to America, from where he completed his master degree in Mechanical Engineering. But his interest leads him to train in dairy technology from New Zealand and Australia on government Scholarship.
Movements Prior to the white revolution
During 1942-1943 when India was under the rule of the British administration exploitation n of Dairy farmers touched it's the peak, milk was used to supply from a small village(Anand) Gujarat to Bombay Province. Indian Businessman Postonjee edulje used to run company 'Polson' worked aa slink between customer and dairy farmers. He had strong links with colonial authority and with the help of that contact, he managed to influence them to pass a bill regarding the supply of milk. As per bill farmers were not allowed to sell their milk anyone else except Polson company. The bill was a clever move by Businessman so that he can buy milk from farmers below fare price and can sell it at a great margin. This pushed a big section of a farmer in poverty as they didn't get fare amount and their milk gets rejected because of insignificant reasons.
1943-1946 are crucial year or years lead to the foundation of the biggest Milk cooperative movement in the history of India. Farmers confronted many influential leaders for support to emancipate themselves from injustice. They met Mr.Sardar Vallabhai Patel known as Iron Man of India. He advised farmers to make cooperative and take control of procurement, processing, supply and marketing promptly. And recommended that they should proceed their movement ahead with help of Political Leader Morarji Desai who later help them in making cooperative and approached Activist Tribhuvandas Patel to lead this movement. Tribhuvandas das went village to village to convenience every dairy farmer to join their cooperative. Everyone readily joined the mission and it leads to the formation of" Kiara District Cooperative Milk Producer Union Limited" in 1946.
Two revolutionary decision passed by cooperative were
1. No farmer will supply milk to Polsen.
2.Taking control of processing and supply of milk directly in their hands.
It was not easy to get approval for their demands as India was still under Britishers and Polson had great influence over English Administration. Cooperative continue their strike for 15 days and instead of supplying milk to Polson they throw it on roads and as a result, this move forced the government to accept their demands.
Beginning of white Revolution
After completing his formal education In 1949, he was sent by the government of India to its run-down, experimental creamery at Anand, in Bombay province(Now it is in Gujrat)during that time he was not fully interested in his job and joined his duty half-heartedly. During the same period, he met Tribhuvandas Patel who was the founder of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union, and later the Amul co-operative movement in Anand, Gujarat, India. He offered him a better job and asked for his help to process milk of farmers whom he brought together to complete his aim of building a successful cooperative society to purchase their milk. He left his job midway and stayed back with Tribhuvandra to establish cooperative dairy"Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited "(Now known as Amul dairy), at Anand.
He joined Cooperative officially he 1950s and after that, there was no turning back. First, he analysed the problems which cooperative is facing and after sufficient information, he concluded that problems not only lies with the system but the production of milk was facing lots of internal threads. And to bloom cooperative it
Major problems faced by Dairy farmers and how Dr.Verghese herein Tackle them
After Research there were Some major problems as highlighted by Dr Verghese Kurein which needed to be tackled in first place
1.Poor Technology- In 1950s India was newly independent nature and was facing many serious crises one of them was Technological deficiency in almost every field, Milk producers in India mostly depended on natural factor and manual resources for the production of milk. There wasn't any advance technology or we can say there wasn't any effective technology at all. One more problem with technology was that poor farmers were not aware of these techniques and their usage .Dr. Kurein introduces them with those technologies he ordered lots of machinery from western countries to make cooperative more self-dependent and successful.
2. Indian Cow didn't use to produce Much milk- Unlike western counties cow is not the only source of milk India Buffalo contributes a great percentage but in comparison to western cows that production was still low. Indian breeds were hardly sufficient and this problem was solved by introducing foreigner breeds in India and hybrid technique was proved effective in solving the problem with the production of milk, cows who were producing 3-4 litre milk earlier were now giving four times more. Which drastically helped every farmer on an individual level.
3. The fluctuation of Milk consumption throughout the year- In India consumption of milk is not the same throughout the year. So one of the most challenges part for farmers and cooperative was to deal with that situation because the change in demand directly affects the income of farmers and cooperative wanted better income for farmers and better use of Milk. Dr Verghese Kurien came up with idea that they should use excessive milk in the production of other dairy items including yoghurt, butter, ghee, and special Focus was on Milk powder during the same time the same product was planned by other company as well but their innovative idea was to produce milk powder with Buffalo milk instead of the cow. And the idea worked in India as lots of people prefer buffalo milk.
4.MiddleMan Problem- In Dairy farming middlemen were a big problem as they were not passing benefits to farmers and consuming a large part of their share, which led to dissatisfaction among farmer and poor living. In the leadership of Dr Kurien cooperative decided to remove all middlemen and directly work with farmers. Farmer became directly involved with the cooperative.
ROAD TO WHITE REVOLUTION
Dr Verghese Kurien joined Kiara came ti won which was later renamed as AMUL in 1950 when he joined the production of milk was 200 litre per day within two years in 1952 production roses up to 20,000 per litre pre day.
National Dairy Development Board
As suggested by PM Dr Kurien met officially in Delhi and demanded 30,000 rupees to start that initiative but after many meetings when he didn't get the amount he started a new initiative with the help of cooperative.
He founded the National Dairy Development board in 1965. Board has it's headquartered Anand, Gujrat and regional branches are throughout the country. The main purpose behind this board was to finance, support and support producer-owned and controlled organisations. Its programmes and activities pursue to boost farmer cooperatives and assist national programs that are favourable to the growth of such establishments.
Under the leadership of Dr Kurien NDDB(National Dairy Development Board)met state governments from many states but all government refused to adopt the plan.
Operation Flood
Refusal from state government didn't weaken his will to make him lose hope in his idea about dairy future in the country. He himself planned to fund the project. With his partners, he prepared budget and planned techniques to replicate and model
He gave this Operation name of Operational flood, In simple words operation flood is to replicate Anand Milk revolution countrywide. When he prepares budget he found out needed 650 crores for this mission. A single person cannot arrange such amount. So he came up with a smart plan to arrange fund
Billion Doller Idea
When India was gearing up for operation flood, the developed countries had a surplus stock of milk which they were planning to give as food aid to developing nations.Dr. Kurien gets to know about it. He gave his proposal to the government of India that they propose a plan in front of the developed nation so that only they get milk and when they get milk instead of distributing it for free, government give it to NDDB so they can further process it and sell it on a price on which dairy farmer would sale it. This will make a market for dairy goods and the money they get from its sale they will use it for making cooperatives of dairy farmers across the nation to accomplish their mission Operation flood this idea is known as ' Billion Doller Idea'
Finally, in 1970 Operation Flood was started by National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) As mentioned above objective of this programme was to create a nationwide milk grid. The result was that India became the largest producer of Milk and Milk Products by surpassing the US in 1998 this Operation flood is called White Revolution of India.
Outcomes of Operation Flood
∆ Successful establishment of other cooperatives including Mother dairy, Dhara, Nestle so on. Role of Dr Verghese Kurien in development in Amul is known but many people don't know that he played a crucial role in the development of all major dairy cooperatives in India.
∆ Dr Kurien also made India self-sufficient in edible oils, taking on an influential, entrenched and violently invulnerable oil supplying coalition.
∆ It encouraged rural masses to take dairying as the main occupation.
∆. It helped dairy-farming become India's largest self-sustaining industry and also, India's largest rural employment provider.
∆Milk production which was about 17million tons in the 1950s rose up to 186 million tons in 2018.
∆India became and still is the leading producer of milk in the world.
∆This operation has increased the need for development and production of healthful animals, use of contemporary technology in the milk production department and enabled a strong relationship between numerous small and large scale dairy businesses.
∆ As sited in official Economic data, the dairy industry is now the largest contributor in the agricultural sector to the nation’s GDP.
∆ This dairy industry had opened the door of employment for women which favourable work conditions.
Operation Flood aftermath outside border
The success of Dr Verghese Kurein's Operation flood had become inspiration worldwide. The model which made India largest milk-producing country became Ideal example across the model. India was the first country to implement such infrastructure. Other were considering it impossible due to the country's population and geography. Many fellow developing countries sought help from Dr Kurein to implement such dairy plan in their country as well.
He played a vital role in prepping similar cooperatives across India and outside.
In 1979, Premier Alexei Kosygin invited Kurien to the Soviet Union for guidance on the cooperatives there.
In 1982, Pakistan persuaded him to set up dairy cooperatives, where he went leading a World Bank mission.
In 1989, China implemented its own Operation Flood-like programme with the help of Kurien and the World Food Programme.
Then Prime minister Narasimha Rao sought his help to set up the dairy cooperative of neighbouring country Sri Lanka which was done later in 1997 by NDDB.
Amul Girl Campaign
Longest running Amul Girl campaign is considered as one of the best Indian advertisement idea because of its humour. The idea was conceived in 1967.
This campaign has lots of theory regarding its origin some theorist believe that when Amul was becoming brand health of girl children were depressing in the country. So this image of the girl was an intentional choice to spread awareness about the health of malnourished girls.
Dr Verghese Kurien proposed a cheerful and funny little girl as a mascot with two major requirements. It had to be easy to draw and memorable as most of the advertising would be outdoor media.
Honours to Dr Verghese Kurien
Above image is a list of some major awards received by Dr Verghese Kurien for his outstanding contribution in his field.
Dr Kurien exhibited it from his work that all we need to achieve any goal is our own Million dollar idea. Work he started half-heartedly had become the motto of his life. His inspiration was not only achieving economic growth out of it but to uplift the condition of very dairy farmer involve in this operation. He became an ideal example to prove that change is possible even if only one person works for it .
Hello, my name is Vaibhav Saraswat. I'm a 23 year old self-employed Science lover from India.
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