India is the largest milk producer in the world today but 75 years ago it made a small start in the ‘Milky Way’ when the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (KDCMPUL) collected 250 liters of milk from two villages in modern times Anand.
What KDCMPUL lacked in scale, it made up for with enthusiasm.
After all, it’s not just another business but a call to end the monopoly of Polson Dairy, private players who have flourished under the British Raj.
‘Movement’ started in 1946 with a meeting of farmers in Samarkha, a village in Kaira district of Gujarat.
Among the wise heads at the table that India ‘Iron Man’ Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the future Prime Minister Morarji Desai and Patel Tribhuvandas freedom fighter, now fondly remembered as Tribhuvan kaka.
It is time for the history books.
(Left) President Rajendra Prasad KDCMPUL laid the foundation stone in 1954; and Tribhuvandas Patel (right), the founder of Amul, with Dr Verghese KurienNot afraid RajPolson milk has secured the rights for the procurement of milk from the entire county of Kaira.
This is the first time Britain has waded into the Indian dairy sector.
Farmers angry because Polson exploited them, and they decided to form a cooperative.
Inspired by calling Patel, KDCMPUL was registered on December 14, 1946, and found his feet under the leadership Tribhuvan this kaka.
Nascent movement got a shot in the arm when young, Kerala-born, Michigan University alumnus landed at the government creamery in Anand to serve out her six-month bond for a government scholarship that has taken him to the US.
Dr Verghese Kurien did not know he would end up spending his entire life in the city now known as the city of Indian milk, and became known as the father of India’s White Revolution.
“It was not the career he chose,” his daughter Nirmala Kurien, 63, told TOI.
“She wants a career in nuclear physics and metallurgy.
But my father always said the greatest privilege to meet Tribhuvan kaka and join the cooperative movement that gave meaning to his life.
A life that he lived on terms, serving as an employee to the farmers.
Sometimes, he even sacrificed his salary.
” After independence, the Indian government canceled its contract with Polson and entered into an agreement with KDCMPUL, who decided to set up their own milk.
The first President of India, Dr.
Rajendra Prasad, laid its foundation stone on November 15, 1954, and on October 31, 1956 – Sardar Patel’s birthday – Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the milk.
Buffalo powerJust 24 hours earlier, Kurien and his team led by dairy technology wizards H M Dalaya, whose family has lost control of the largest dairy Karachi after Partition, have found ways to make milk powder from buffalo milk.
“This breakthrough proved to be a game changer for the dairy industry in India.
The dairy industry of developed countries believe that the milk powder can only be produced from cow’s milk, “said RS Sodhi, managing director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) that markets Amul brand of milk below.
Sodhi was from the first batch of Kurien’s another idea, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).
“There are many interests vested.
Milk-producing countries such as New Zealand have abused the idea that the milk powder can be produced from buffalo milk, too.
But my father was a man of great foresight, “said Nirmala.
This Shastri Jai KisanHaving cut his milk teeth, KDCMPUL grow rapidly.
It established the first milk plant with milk processing capacity of 1 lakh liter per day.
Brand Amul, which means priceless in Sanskrit, was launched in 1957.
In the mid-1960s, the milk cooperative movement must spread to other districts of Gujarat – Surat, Vadodara, Mehsana and Sabarkantha.
But most of India is still untouched by the revolution that had begun in Anand.
That changed after Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had come to inaugurate Amul feed mill in 1964.
He spent the night in a village and learn the secrets of success Anand – cooperation.
This inspired him to create the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) to replicate the Anand model of the whole of India with Kurien as the first chairman.
In July 1970, the official NDDB launched Operation Flood – the idea of ​​’one billion liters’ – leading to what is known as the White Revolution.
In the late 1990s, India’s milk deficit has turned into the largest milk producer in the world, overtaking the US.