Kurien's death caused the iconic 'Amul Girl' to weep for the first time in nearly 5 decades
Tushaar Shah begins by stating that Kurien's legacy is in 'the institutions he built, the ideas he propounded, a dairy industry the country can be proud of, and a deep imprint on our thinking about development and democracy'before expounding on the various facets of his personality.
Man, manager, leader:
This pays a warm tribute to Kurien's humour, dedication, sense of fairness, management skills, interpersonal skills, and his gift of inspiring others. Shah narrates several anecdotes that illustrate these characteristics and bring alive a man most others only know of through his acheivements alone.
Impact on Indian dairying:
This section speaks of his success with the White revolution. Amul, the brand Kurien built, is today an organization of nearly three million small dairy producers with a total value of Rs 12,000 crore. Amul pattern dairy cooperatives today operate a business of Rs 33,000-35,000 crore annually and are growing at a steady 12-15% annually. One of the reasons for this success is Kurien's campaigning to keep multinational dairy companies out of India till the fledgling national industry was stabilised.
Cooperative movement:
Kurien strongly believed in the cooperative model, with the producer in full control of operations. He created a set of design principles for replicating the Amul model. These are:
- A stable and remunerative market is a precondition for surplus milk production
- The market must be captured before cooperatives are formed
- Externally sourced milk supplies may need to be used to capture the market
- Later, milk needs to be supplied to the newly formed cooperatives by forcing extant trade to withdraw.
- Cooperative unions must have a powder plant to acccommodate seasonal fluctuations
- The structure needs to be managed by professionals accountable to the producers.
Nation buiding:
The many institutions built around the
National Dairy Development Board owe their existence to Kurien and his goal of building a strong Indian dairy industry. He also founded the
Institute of Rural Management at Anand (IRMA).
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