India Personalities

Dr. Verghese Kurien

 
Dr. Verghese Kurien is called the "father of the white
revolution" in India. He is credited with architecting Operation
Flood -- the largest dairy development program in the world.
Verghese Kurien, set up the Anand model of cooperative dairy
development, engineered the White Revolution in India, and
made India the largest milk producer in the world.
Born on 26th November 1921, Dr.Kurien graduated with
Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and then did B.E.
(Mech) from the Madras University. After passing out of the
University, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute,
Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946. 
He then went to USA on a government scholarship to do his
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan
State University. When he came back to India, he was posted
as a Dairy Engineer at the government creamery, Anand, in
May 1949.
Around the same time, the infant cooperative dairy, Kaira
District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited (KDCMPUL),
-- now famous as AMUL -- was fighting a battle with the Polson
Dairy which was privately owned. Young Kurien, fed up with
being at the government creamery which held no challenge,
volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, the Chairman of
KDCMPUL, to set up a processing plant. This marked the birth
of AMUL and the rest is history.
 
Did You Know
Tribhuvandas Patel was assigned by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel the task of "making the Kaira
farmers happy and organize them into a cooperative unit".
 
Dr. Kurien has since then built this organization into one of the largest and most successful
institutions in India. The Amul pattern of cooperatives had been so successful that Dr.
Kurien setup NDDB (National Dairy Development Board) to replicate it across India.
 
Did You Know
Dr. Kurien wanted to leave Amul in 1949 but Shri Tribhuvandas Patel influenced him to stay
back.
 
He also set up GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) in 1973 to sell the
products produced by the dairies. Today GCMMF sells AMUL brand products not only in
India but also overseas.
 
 
For his contribution to the dairy industry Dr. Kurien has received top awards not only in
India but also overseas.
Padmashri (1965) 
Padmabhushan (1966) 
Krishi Ratna Award (1986) by the President of India. 
Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963)
Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie Foundation (1986)
World Food Prize Award (1989) 
International Person of the Year(1993) by the World Dairy Expo,
Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Padma Vibhushan (1999)
 
 
Dairy in India

India has the largest cattle population in the world.

India has overtaken the US and is the largest producer of milk in the world.
 
Did You Know
The first Amul cooperative was the result of a farmers' meeting in Samarkha (Kaira district,
Gujarat) on 4th January 1946, called by Morarji Desai under the advice of Sardar
Vallabhbhai Patel, to fight rapacious milk contractors. It was Sardar's vision to organise
farmers, to have them gain control over production, procurement and marketing by
entrusting the task of managing these to qualified professionals, thereby eliminating the
middle men, the bane in farmers' prosperity.
 
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VADODARA/ANAND: A four-member delegation of senior Kenyan

government officials visited Amul Dairy and Gujarat Co-operative Milk
Marketing Federation (GCMMF) in Anand on Monday. The delegation led by
senior deputy secretary of ministry of co-operative development and
marketing EM Irungu also visited Amul's cattlefeed factory at Kanjari, Amul
Research and Development Association at Ode and GCMMF's Mother Dairy
plant in Gandhinagar on Tuesday. 

The Kenyan delegation wanted to understand the success of the dairy co-
operative movement started by Amul, known as India's White Revolution.
Apart from Irungu, the delegation included senior assistant commissioner
Joram Gicheru, Mary Mungai from ministry of co-operative development and
marketing and head of production of Nairobi-based New Kenya Co-operative
Creameries Limited, Geoffrey Bartenge were also briefed about the history of
Amul and the role that its founder chairman Tribhuvandas Patel and father of
White Revolution Dr Verghese Kurien. 

"Amul model is an inspiration to the co-operative movement in Kenya. We will

strive to have the model replicated for our farmers in Kenya for poverty
alleviation," Irungu said after the visit. 

After World Bank launched new South-South collaboration in October 2008 to

bring Indian and African farmers together to share knowledge on how to
replicate India's dairy revolution in Africa, several delegations from African
countries have visited Amul. Last month, a delegation from Ethiopialed by
ambassador to Ethiopia in India Gennet Zewide had visited GCMMF. 

Read more: Kenyan team in Amul to study India's White Revolution - The

Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/vadodara/Kenyan-team-
in-Amul-to-study-Indias-White-
Revolution/articleshow/5837307.cms#ixzz1EoDPIoaG

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