National Dairy Development Board: A Successful Indian Dairy Co-operative Movement

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Introduction Contd...

By the late 1990s, NDDB's success with the co-operative movement in India attracted the attention of many other developing countries as well as international agencies related to dairy development. The countries which were inspired by the 'Operation Flood' project and which planned to implement similar projects included Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines and Malaysia, besides a few African nations. Helping other emerging countries establish co-operatives in the dairy industry was one of the elements of the three-pronged strategic plan outlined by Amrita Patel (Patel), who took over as chairman of NDDB in 1999 (after Kurien's 33-year stint). In addition to aiming at capitalizing the success of co-operative-run diaries, the plan also involved transforming India into a major milk exporter and extending the co-operative model to other domestic agricultural products.

Background Note

The earliest attempts at modernizing dairy development in India can be traced back to the early 1940s. During this period, private dairies with reasonably modern processing facilities emerged in major cities such as Bombay (now Mumbai), Calcutta (now Kolkata), Delhi and Madras (now Chennai), and in some large townships.

As these dairies received their milk supplies through middlemen, who bought milk from milk producers on their behalf, they were not concerned with improving milch animal varieties.

The dairies and the middlemen stood between the milk producers and the ultimate consumers, leading to the exploitation of both.

While the middlemen paid the producers inadequately, the dairies exploited the end customers by charging high prices. With the country's economy gradually moving from an agrarian to an industrialized environment, the population shift to urban areas picked up momentum.

This, coupled with the fact that almost the entire milch population of India was located in the rural areas, resulted in the urban areas facing an acute shortage of milk.

The situation prompted the government to launch many schemes to ensure regular supply of milk in these areas. However, procuring milk from rural areas and marketing it in the urban areas proved to be a major problem as the milk got spoilt in transit.

The government realized that pasteurizing the milk would be the answer to this problem. It entered into contracts with privately held dairy farms to pasteurize milk and transport it to the cities...

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