Verghese Kurien, the father of the White Revolution, who made India number one in milk production

New Delhi , Nov 26 (HS): Today is the birthday of Dr. Varghese Kurien, the father of the White Revolution in India. He played an important role in making the country facing the scarcity of milk the world’s largest milk producing country. He was born on 26 November 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala. In India, his birthday is celebrated as National Milk Day and it was started in the year 2014.

He is called the father of India’s Operation Flood (White Revolution). He died on 9 September 2012. Due to ‘Operation Flood’, led by Kurien, India became the largest milk-producing country in the world. India’s Operation Flood was the largest dairy development program in the world, which encouraged milk production in India.

Kurien’s achievement is more than increasing milk production. Kurien graduated in science from Loyola College, Chennai in 1940 and obtained an engineering degree from GC Engineering College, Chennai.

Verghese Kurien founded Amul. His dream was to make the country self-sufficient in milk production as well as to improve the condition of farmers. His professional life was dedicated to empowering Indian farmers through cooperatives. He took up dairy work in 1949 at the request of Tribhuvan Das Patel, President of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Association Limited (KDCMPUL). This dairy was established on the initiative of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Under the leadership of Varghese Kurien, the co-operative’s day and night progressed. KDCMPUL’s co-operative societies started to be built in villages. So much milk started to accumulate that their supply started getting difficult. To solve this problem, it was decided to set up a milk processing plant so that milk could be preserved. Co-operatives started spreading in the neighboring districts of Anand.  Dr. Kurien wanted to give KDCMPUL a simple and easy-to-pronounce name. Employees suggested the priceless name, which means priceless. The name Amul was later chosen.

 Hindusthan Samachar / Radha

Kurien was the first person in the world to manufacture powder from buffalo milk. Earlier, the powder was made from cow’s milk. At that time there was no technique to make buffalo milk powder. Work started in this direction. In 1955, the technology of making buffalo milk powder developed for the first time in the world. This plant was set up at Kaira Dairy in October 1955. This was a huge success of Amul.

The Operation Flood program began in 1970. Operation Flood helped the farmers associated with the dairy industry to give direction to their own development, control of their resources in their hands. The National Milk Grid connects the country’s milk producers with consumers in more than 700 cities and towns.

Overwhelmed by the success of Amul, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri formed the National Milk Development Board (NDDB) to spread the Amul model to other places and Dr. Kurien was made the chairman of the board. As the chairman of NDDB, he led ‘Operation Flood’ to make India the largest milk producer in the world and made Amul popular from house to house. He was the head of Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited from 1973 to 2006 and President of the Institute of Rural Management from 1979 to 2006.

NDDB started ‘Operation Flood’ in 1970, making India the largest milk-producing country in the world. Kurian served as the chairman of NDDB for 33 years from 1965 to 1998. In the sixties, milk consumption in India was 20 million tonnes whereas in 2017-18 it reached 17.6 million tonnes.

An interesting and interesting thing related to Kurien’s personal life is that this person who brought ‘white revolution’ in the country and known as ‘Milkman of India’ did not drink milk himself. He used to say, ‘I don’t drink milk because I don’t like it.’ The Government of India honored him with the Padma Vibhushan. He was also awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership, the Carnegie Water World Peace Prize and the International Person of the Year honor of the US.

Today, over 16 million milk producers across the country are connected with Amul. These milk producers deliver their milk to Amul through 1,85,903 dairy cooperative societies across the country. The processing of milk is done in 218 District Co-operative Unions. Amul’s 28 State Marketing Federations deliver its milk to crores of people.