Dr Verghese Kurian was a believer in the importance of cooperative leadership in protecting, preserving and exemplifying the values of cooperation against those who seek power and patronage.

He transformed India from a milk deficient country into one of the biggest milk producers in the world. Under his able leadership Anand became the milk capital of the country where Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and Institute of Rural Management, (IRMA) are located.

His vision of the dairy cooperative sector links over 10 million farmers at 200 dairies across the country producing more than 20 million litres of milk everyday. He was awarded Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Magasaysay Award and other National and International awards.

His biggest contribution was to unite millions of women and farmers in the Dairy Cooperative sector and create a brand known as AMUL. As Chairman of NDDB he began Operation Flood that spanned more than 2 decades and eventually ushered in the white revolution in the country.

Many countries replicated the Anand Model and became self-reliant in milk and milk processing industries. Thanks to his efforts, Institute of Rural Management Anand was set up for R & D and training on various aspects of management of rural cooperatives.

The IRMA has been a totally unique institution giving impetus to young brains to understand rural development and issues of farmers. He stood like a rock against bureaucratic difficulties at different points of time to ensure the growth of GCMMF and NDDB. He nurtured these organisations and developed a second line of command.

The ultimate tribute to Dr. V. Kurien would be to protect and preserve what he stood for throughout his life. The cooperative movement in India is at a crossroads. It is the duty of us cooperators to build and strengthen a genuine cooperative movement in the country to project the interests of farmers and other weaker sections of society.

(Mr Eknath Thakur is the Chairman of Saraswat Bank, the biggest cooperative bank of India)

Verghese Kurien, was the architect of white revolution that changed India from a milk-deficient country to the world’s biggest milk producer. He laid the foundation of the nation’s co-operative dairy industry.

Recognized as the ‘Milkman of India’, who created the billion dollar brand Amul passed away on Sunday morning at the age of 90.

The Indian government had conferred on him the Padma Vibhushan while he was also the recipient of World Food Price,Ramon Magsaysay award for Community Leadership, Carnegie Wateler World Peace Prize and International Person of the Year award from US.

Born in Kozhikode, Kerala on November 26, 1921, Kurien had graduated in science from Loyola College in Chennai (1940) and obtained his degree in engineering from the Guindy College of Engineering in Chennai.

After a stint at TISCO, Jamshedpur, Kurien got the Government of India’s (GoI) scholarship to study dairy engineering.

Following specialized training at Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Dairying in Bangalore, Kurien went to the United States where he completed his masters’ degree in mechanical engineering, with dairy engineering as a minor subject, from the Michigan State University in 1948.

On his return Dr Kurien was assigned to join Government Creamery located at Anand in Gujarat to serve his bond period. By the end of 1949, Kurien got release orders from his job at the creamery.

Kurien joined Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited in 1949, on the request of Tribhuvandas Patel, then dairy chairman. The dairy was formed at the initiative of Sardar Vallabhabhai Patel.

And thus began his journey which threw him to global lime light. Kurien was visionary no doubt as no one before him had understood the power of networking farmers into a unit and producing milk collectively.

Cooperative model came handy and he exploited it the hilt to go into history as one of the brightest sons of India.

There is an eerie silence in GCMMF at Anand in Gujarat these days. Elections are round the corner but when- is not known to anyone. And who are in fray is another question haunting the stake holders.

Talking to Indian Cooperative on Monday the outgoing Chairman Parthi Bhatol once again reiterated that he does not know if he is a candidate. Sources confide to Indian Cooperative that he is waiting for “order” of his political bosses.

But Bhatol clarified to Indian Cooperative that what he waits for is the members’ reaction. If they want me to contest I would do so, he said emphatically.

When Indian Cooperative contacted Mr R S Sodhi, the Managing Director of GCMMF to know the date of elections, Mr Sodhi said “no dates have come so far from the office of District Magistrate”.

Readers could recall that court had asked Collector to complete the elections procedure within a month. Board has already completed its tenure in July.

GCMMF, the cooperative federation of 16 milk unions has in its byelaws stipulation of a perpetual board. Explaining this further, Sodhi said that unless the next board meeting takes place, the erstwhile board would continue.

The dairy cooperative giant passes through the motion of a board meeting after every three months. Even the date of holding next board meeting is to be fixed in consultation with the district magistrate.

But Mr Sodhi sounded confident that within a month a new board would be constituted.

Vipul Chaudhary remains a potent challenger, besides Bhatol. But each of the board members of GCMMF has to first get elected from the milk union which he represents. Election of Banas dairy is round the corner.

Bhatol’s victory at Banas would embolden him to contend for the election of Chairmanship of GCMMF. Till then fingers would remain crossed.

GCMMF popularly known as Amul has made a name for itself as a company that sells dairy products. Amul girl has no doubt played an important role in branding its image. But Indian Cooperative has found out another reason behind its great reputation.

The incident is small yet significant. It shows how an organization gets built.

One of the readers based in Delhi wrote in the comment box of one of the stories of Indian Cooperative that the milk being supplied by Amul for the last three days had been stale.

Indian Cooperative forwarded the comment to R S Sodhi , Managing Director of Amul Monday evening. Mr Sodhi wrote back immediately asking for e-mail and other details of the complainant which Indian Cooperative supplied happily.

And then a torrent of communications started from the MD’s desk for the entire day. Next morning the comment-writer Sanjay JIndal ,a resident of Patparganj in Delhi was startled to find a whole team of Amul officials descending on his residence.

Taken aback by the fast-paced development he writes “

With reference to my complaint about Amul milk, I had posted on your portal, I wasn’t expecting any response at all, but I am very happy to inform you that they took notice and made an effort to understand and resolve the issue.

Amul’s representative visited me today and replaced the bad milk. He also assured me that they will also deal with the distributor who had refused to change the delivery and refused to replace the bad milk. But something to follow up if anything happens or not!

I also asked him if the entire customer who got the spoiled milk for few days, would they get the refund and he said yes, that they are going to process refunds thru the dealer network. Again something to watch if Amul would really do anything on this or these is just empty assurances.

Thanks again for your initiative. This gives encouragement to consumers who sometime think that there is no point in complaining because nothing will happen.

Regards
Sanjay Jindal sanjay.jindal@netsutra.com

Sodhi acting with alacrity and dispatch is something that could not only be useful for the cooperatives but also for our corporates. It is because of this kind of attitude that Amul takes on the India Inc and is a jewel of the Cooperative world. Will other MDs take cue from him?

Adulterated milk has recently been the subject of national conversation. There have been reports of even major milk companies selling adulterated milk on the market. It is against a background of growing public suspicion of adulteration that milk major Amul has decided to have mobile vans for on the spot checks of milk samples.

According to Ramsingh Parmar, Chairman of Amul, which actually is one of the milk unions of GCMMF, this would greatly strengthen adulteration prevention efforts in that investigation would become a lot easier and an effective quick check on adulteration an easy practical option.

Amul has over thousand village cooperative societies under its control that are scattered over various districts of Gujarat. With the help of mobile vans, Amul can easily keep its eye on adulteration.

There are dozens of sources of milk located in faraway districts of the state but the use of mobile checking vans would deter the erring ones among them from indulging in any suspicious activities.

Sources claim the mobile van has the latest technology on it and would come very handy whenever an investigation needs to be conducted. This marks Amul out as a company that cares about its customers, sources add.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) has charted out its expansion plans for the next five years. It proposes to invest Rs 3,000 crore over the next five years to increase its daily milk processing capacity from 145 to 180 lakh litres.

The federation is in the process of setting up two milk processing plants in Delhi, and four plants in Saurashtra region of Gujarat, besides planning to set up a plant even in United States.

“Our goal is to increase the milk processing capacity from the existing 145 to 180 lakh litres per day over the next five years, for which we will invest around Rs 3,000 crore,” GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi said.

“We are setting up two new plants in Delhi having processing capacity of 30 and 10 lakh litres per day each, which are expected to be commissioned by this year end,” he said.

“A milk processing plant having 10 lakh litres per day capacity has come up in Mumbai, and is expected to be operational within next two or three months,” Sodhi said.

“The four processing plants proposed in Saurasthra region of Gujarat each having capacity of 2 lakh litres per day will go on stream within a year,” he said adding that eight lakh litres capacity addition will be in Saurashtra alone.

“The federation operates with a network of 52 milk processing plants in India, of which nine are operating on hired basis,” Sodhi said.

GCMMF, which clocked a turnover of Rs 11,660 crore in 2011-12, currently procures around 140 lakh litres of milk per day.

“The overall turnover of brand Amul is around Rs 16,000 crore, which includes sales of member dairies of the federation,” a GCMMF official said.

The federation has begun procuring milk from states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana among others, and paying same prices to the farmers there as given to their counterparts in Gujarat, he said.

-PTI

Within three months, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) that markets its products under brand ‘Amul’, has decided to hike its milk prices in Delhi and NCR by Rs 1-2 a litre from Friday.

But, there is some relief for consumers as another major dairy cooperative ‘Paras’, which has significant presence in Delhi and NCR market, said it has no immediate plan to spike cost of its milk.

There was, however, no word from Mother Dairy.

Accordingly cost of Amul Taaza will be Rs 29 a litre from Friday in Delhi and NCR as compared to Rs 28 earlier, while its Slim and Trim variety will cost Rs 25 a litre in  lace of Rs 24 per litre and Amul Gold (full cream) Rs 38 as against Rs 36/litre earlier, GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi told media.

Amul had increased prices of these varieties at the same level in its home state Gujarat on July 25 last. In Mumbai, similar hike was effected from July 10 itself.

Sodhi said similar hikes would be done in other parts of the country soon. He said the price rise was due to increase in procurement cost of the milk.

“With the rise in transport and other input cost, we have to now pay farmers more…this has forced us to increase milk prices for the consumers,” Sodhi added.

But, Paras brand ruled out any hike. Narendra Nagar, Director (Operation) of Paras also ruled out raising milk prices in near future.

“We are absorbing the hike in milk procurement cost due to rise in rates of diesel and other factors…in the interest of consumers we have decided not to increase milk prices in near future,” Nagar added. Describing the price rise by Amul as “unjustified”, he said rise in procurement price by Amul would have an adverse impact on them also.

The three popular milk brands had increased prices of its milk in Delhi and NCR by Rs 2 a litre in May last.

Amul has been rated as the Top Indian Green Brand by the Global Green Brands Study which reveals current consumers’ attitudes and perceptions towards green issues.

The team behind the public opinion research Cohn and Wolfe, Esty Environmental Partners and Penn Schoen Berland polled over 9,000 people in eight countries from April 2–May 3, 2011 ranking more than 370 brands and determined which companies have the greenest reputation across the world. 1101 respondents from top metros of India were surveyed.

The countries, where the poll was conducted, includes Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, the USA, the UK, and India.

As per the research, India is the only country to choose deforestation and air pollution as the most important green issue. India is also the only country in which more consumers say it should be developing countries that should focus on green innovation versus developed countries.

Commenting on this, R S Sodhi, Managing Director, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) said that Amul’s initiative of planting 8-9 million saplings by its 3 million members on a single day (15th August) in 15000 villages since last 4 years has been recognized by the consumers.

The milk producers plant saplings on their own at pre-identified locations like their farm, near their homes, on farm bunds etc. to help improve the forest cover. A total of 24 million saplings have been planted so far and another 10 million will be planted on 15th August 2011.

The International Dairy Federation has also awarded Amul Green movement as the Best Environment Initiative in the “Sustainability category” in 2010. It has also been awarded Srishti’s Good Green Governance Award for four consecutive years since 2007.

The 2011 findings emphasize that brands must not only develop environmental strategies to address their environmental impact, but they must also connect with consumers in a compelling and relevant way on a market-by-market basis.

Today, being only eco-friendly is not enough—brands should be both green and consumer-friendly, and only this can help them win big. The Amul model has demonstrated that it cares for the consumers, producers and also the environment on a sustainable basis.

In a prestigious survey Amul has emerged as leader in Food and Beverage sector in India. With 5 Gujarat based brands featuring among India’s Most Trusted Brands, Gujarat has one more reason to be proud.

Amul debuts the Gujarat list at All-India 57th rank, leading the Food & Beverage sector countrywide among the 23 contenders in the F&B list in the “The Brand Trust Report, India Study-2011.” The other Ahmedabad-based brands include the 94th ranked Arrow from Arvind Mills, 130th ranked Vimal, Nirma at the 146th and the 148th ranked Zatak from Paras Pharma Ltd.

Coming close on the success of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, the findings show the growing might of the Gujarat brand as it makes its way into Indian hearts.

The revelations were a result of a study, published by Trust Research Advisory, a leading research organization dedicated to understanding and simplifying concepts related to Trust.

The study is compiled into a 116-page report titled “The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2011” and was launched at a ceremony in Mumbai, recently.

Mr. R. S. Sodhi, the MD of Amul GCMMF Ltd, is quoted in the report as saying: “Since 1956, several generations of Indian consumers have grown up with the brand and Amul has been an integral part of their daily lives.

Awareness about the organizational dimension of brand Amul; its role in unleashing socio-economic revolution in rural India; its perceived contribution to nation-building; has also served to enhance our brand image among consumers.

While inaugurating a state of the art Whey Powder Plant at Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producer’s Union Ltd’s (Amul) satellite dairy in Khatraj in Kheda district, Vergese Kurian father of the ‘white revolution’ in India admired milk producers and milk cooperatives.

He also warned them to stay alert lest multination companies beat us. He also cautioned against “opportunists” aiming  to destroy the cooperative institutes in the country.

The founding member of Amul dairy, Tribhuvandas Patel and dairy expert M M Dalaya. Came in for special praise from Kurien’s mouth as he said that he could not have achieved any thing with out them.

He patted milk producers of the cooperative societies for preserving the tradition of coming up with new products.

Earlier, he had made a surprise visit to Anand “down the memory lane’, He met officials and chatted with them of old times.