AMITY LAW SCHOOL - 2

ENTREPENEURSHIP PROJECT

Submitted by:

Akansha Singh Chaudhary

BA.,LLB (H)

SEM-5

SEC-C

A11911113161

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my entrepreneurship teachers who gave me the golden

opportunity to do this wonderful project. This project also helped me in doing a lot of Research and I came to know about so many new things and I am really thankful to all

Secondly I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finalizing this project

within the limited time frame.

INTRODUCTION

Dr. Verghese Kurien was born on November 26, 1921 to an affluent Syrian

Christian family in Calicut (now Kozhikode), Kerala. His father Puthenparakkal

Kurien was a civil surgeon in British Cochin and his mother was a highly

educated woman as well an exceptional piano player. He was named after

his uncle Rao Sahib P.K Verghese. Dr Kurien joined Loyola College in Madras

and attained his degree in B.Sc in Physics. He was also very active in sports

and represented the college in cricket, badminton, boxing and tennis. He

went to the United States of America on government scholarship where he

pursued his degree in Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering

(Distinction). He returned to India after completion of his studies and on May

13, 1949 he headed for Anand, a place in Kaira district of Gujarat where he

was supposed to spend five years as an officer of the Dairy division in return

for the scholarship paid by the government. On arriving at Anand, he found

that the farmers were being exploited by the distributors of milk and the

entire region was controlled by a shrewd but clever businessman called as

"Pestonjee Edulji" who marketed Polson butter.

Looking at the struggle of these people to survive and mesmerized by the

personality of their leader Tribhuvandas Patel who was trying to unite the

farmers and form a cooperative movement against the exploitation, Dr.

Kurien left his government job and joined forces with Tribhuvandas Patel and

the farmers to start the Milk Cooperative movement in the region registered

under the name of Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd

(KDCMPUL), which was later renamed to now popular "Amul". He worked

towards bringing a White Revolution in India and executed the much needed

programme of "Operation Flood". Dr. Verghese Kurien married Susan Molly

Peter on June 15, 1953 and they had one daughter Nirmala Kurien and a

grandson, Siddharth. Dr. Kurein was the man responsible for turning India

from a milk deficient country to the largest producer of milk in the world

today. Under his inspiring leadership many important institutions were

established namely the GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing

Federation Ltd) and NDDB (National Dairy Development board which played

a significant role in shaping the Dairy Cooperative movement across the

country and led the replication of Anand model of cooperative dairy

practiced all over the country.

Dr. Kurien always regarded himself as an employee of the farmers who

would do anything to bring prosperity in their favor.In his service of over fifty

years he attained 15 honorary degrees from different institutions of the

world as he believed that learning should never stop. His enduring

personality, spirit, undying charisma and conviction of turning the impossible

into possible won him many accolades such as the Ramon Magsaysay Award

for Community Leadership (1963), Padma Shri (1965), Padma Bhushan

(1966), Krishi Ratna Award (1986), World Food prize (1989), Padma

Vibhushan (1999), Economic Times award for Corporate Excellence (2001)

and several other awards, but the best award that the people of the country

gave him was the title "Milkman of India". After a lifetime of struggle and

conviction towards serving the nation Dr. Verghese Kurien breathe his last on

9 September 2012 due to brief illness at Anand. Dr. Verghese Kurien will

always be remembered as the person who redefined the meaning of milk as

a powerful tool for economic development.

JOURNEY DR. VERGHESE KURIEN

1920-1940

It all began at Anand, a place in Kaira district, Gujarat famous for its Dairy

Industry. It was ruled by some old players who started their dairy in 1890s

and 1910s. However during the 1920s a new entrant called as “Polson”,

which was led by a shrewd but clever Parsi businessman known as

“Pestonjee Edulji” entered the market. He started supplying Polson butter to

the British Army and its milk products soon became a household name. He

built a large dairy in Anand in the year 1930. Once he was asked by the

Bombay milk scheme whether it was possible for him to supply milk from

Anand to Bombay – some 350 kilometers away. Never before had liquid milk

travelled such long distances, but Pestonjee was not the man who would let

the opportunity go.

He pasteurized milk and transported it to Bombay in a rather primitive

fashion in milk cans wrapped up in gunny bags with chilled water poured on

the cans. The experiment worked and very soon Bombay became an

important market for Polson. With this Pestonjee started developing good

relations with the government officials and he would persuade them to make

arrangement so that he could get benefit out of it. Pestonjee knew that the

main source of milk is the Kaira district so he persuaded the government

officials to make arrangements that only Polson dairy could procure milk

from the district. His wish was granted and Pestonjee started monopolizing

the market; he started selling products to the people at higher prices and

started exploiting farmers by paying them less for their produce and since

Pestonjee monopolized the market, the milk producers had no option but

become the victim of exploitation.

By 1945, the Polson dairy was flourishing and the farmers were getting more

and more exploited, leading to animosity among the farmers and hence the

seeds of the movements were sown..

1946

It was Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s vision that led to the growth of the

cooperative movement. After fighting for and winning the freedom he

recognized that independence was more than a political task. He knew that

the rural people could never become completely free until they were

liberated from the exploitation of money lenders, burdens of the social ills

and the caste and class discrimination. He addressed the problems of

building rural institutions and educating rural people for their

development.Sardar Patel urged the dairy farmers to organize milk

cooperatives, which would give them control over the resources they

generated. He assigned Morarji Desai, his deputy, to coordinate this effort.

Morarji Desai organized a meeting where he asked people to become the

chairman of the cooperative and take the work ahead. A few people

volunteered, but Morarjibhai chose Tribhuvandas Patel who was a committed

freedom fighter and the elected vice president of the Kaira district congress

committee. Tribhuvandas was a man of integrity and honour and he started

the cooperative by organizing the dairy farmers and he soon managed to

form a couple of cooperative societies. Although the farmers were ready to

take their leader’s advice but since milk was such a perishable commodity,

farmers had to accept the price that the contractor offered and also Polson

would use every trick in the book to procure milk at lower prices by accusing

the milk producers that their milk lacks quality. Farmers got fed up of the

daily exploitation and Tribhuvandas met Sardar Patel to seeka solution. Patel

gave him a simple solution that if they wanted to stop exploitation then they

need to remove Polson from the market by capturing the Bombay market for

which they need to gather the masses and the cooperative needs to own the

dairy. Only, then they could pressurize the Bombay Milk scheme (BMS) to

buy milk from them and not Polson. However, Pestonjee’s reach was stronger

than the cooperative’s and Tribhuvandas and company’s plea was rejected.

In protest of the BMS, the cooperative society went on a 15 day strike,

famously recalled in history as the Kaira strike. The farmers collected the

milk and poured it on the streets but not even a single drop was given to

Polson. Finally the BMS realized the strength of the union and kneeled to

their demands. For Tribhuvandas Patel this was morale boosting incident as

he travelled mile after mile, village after village trying to convince the famers

to form the cooperative society. Finally in December 1946, Kaira District

Cooperative Milk Producers Union Limited (KDCMPUL) was registered. By

procuring the old dairy of World War I from the government they began their

process.

Arrival of Dr.Verghese Kurien at Anand

It was Friday, 13 May, 1949 when Dr. Verghese Kurien first arrived at Anand

to serve his bond in return of the scholarship he received from the

government. Although he had no plans of working in the village but soon he

started noticing the movement of the farmers in the village and admired the

qualities of their leader, Tribhuvandas Patel. He started giving ideas to the

cooperative, shared his views on how to go ahead and advised them in the

selection of machinery for manufacturing milk. Tribhuvandas Patel

recognized the potential of Dr. Verghese Kurien and just on the day when Dr.

Verghese Kurien resigned from his job and packed his bags to leave,

Tribhuvandas asked him to help him in setting the new dairy in the village,

since no one in the village was able to run the new machinery. Dr. Kurien

agreed and stayed back to help them.

1952

Increasing production of the cooperative

Although, Kurien stopped for a few days but looking at the struggle of the

farmers he stayed back. He worked for the farmers in creating a better life

for them by taking the cooperative movement ahead. He started working

day and night for the dairy along with Tribhuvandas and hundreds of

farmers. On the advice of Dr. Kurien, Tribhuvandas left the old machinery of

manufacturing milk and collected money from the cooperative and bought

new machinery from Larsen and Toubro in 1951. Dr. Kurien joined the

cooperative as General Manager in 1950. With the new machinery in place,

the procurement capacity of the cooperative rose from 200 litres of milk in

1948 to 20,000 litres in 1952. Slowly and gradually the name of Kaira

reached till Delhi and the Anand model of cooperative started growing.

1955

World’s First Buffalo Milk Powder plant

After returning from New Zealand, Dr. Kurien started his experiment of

obtaining milk powder from buffalo milk. Through a series of experiments

under the guidance of Dalaya and other cooperative members, Dr. Kurien

became successful in making milk powder from buffalo milk and planned to

build a plant where they could manufacture the buffalo milk powder.

On November 15, 1954, the first president of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad laid

the foundation for the world’s first dairy to manufacture milk powder from

buffalo milkat Anand . Dr. Kurien was confident that the plant could be

erected in a period of one year and when Maniben asked him who he wants

to inaugurate the plant, he said Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. When contacted,

Pandit Nehru gracefully accepted the invitation and informed that he would

inaugurate the plant on October 31, 1955, the birth anniversary of Sarder

Vallabhbhai Patel, which gave them exactly 11 months to build the plant.

The work started and experts from foreign countries were called to erect the

plant and finally on the day of the inauguration all the preparations were

done.

Pandit Nehru inaugurated the plant and gave an inspiring speech which

boosted the morale of the cooperative. This is how the world’s first buffalo

milk powder manufacturing plant came to life.

1957

Birth of Amul

With the increasing production capacity of the plant and the progressive

nature of the cooperative, it was time to take the competition under

consideration and there was a need to understand the finer points of

marketing Kaira Cooperative’s products. At a brainstorming session to come

up with a good name for the products, a chemist at the laboratory suggested

the name “Amul”. It comes from a Sanskrit word “Amoolya” which means

priceless. Also it stood as an acronym for Anand Milk Union Limited.

Advertising and Sales Promotion (ASP) did a fine job by crafting the Amul

polka dotted girl and the best baseline a brand has ever had “Utterly Butterly

Delicious”. the credit for the work goes to Eustace Fernandez, Slyvester Da

cunha and his team.

The name was registered in the year 1957 and till today it is the most

recalled household name.

It was also a special year for Dr. Kurien as her daughter Nirmala was born in

1957.

1962

War against China

In 1962, the clouds of war against China darkened the nation. The Prime

Minister’s office called the Amul cooperative to help the government as the

army needed milk powder during the war; the requirement was 2750 tons

within six months. Although that was outside the reach of the Amul

cooperative but in collaboration with the Rajkot dairy they fulfilled the

demand of the government by completely seizing the consumer market. The

integrity of the cooperative and its leaders was such that when asked what

they want in return of this favour, they said “nothing” and proved that in real

sense it is serving the nation. Minoo Polson (son of Pestonjee Edulji) tried to

increase the prices of its butter and take undue advantage of the scenario.

When it came to the notice of Amul cooperative, they froze the

manufacturing of Polson with the help of the government.

1964

Lal Bahadur Shastri visits Anand

On the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Prime Minister

of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri , who had heard a lot about the development

process going in Anand, he called the then Chief Minister of Gujarat,

Balwantrai Mehta and made an unusual request. He mentioned that he

would like to visit Anand but a day earlier and spend a night at a small

farmer’s house with no police protection where he can move freely and talk

with the villagers. His main objective was to understand the life of the farmer

and the way they perform functions at the cooperative. Balwantrai Mehta

immediately conveyed the message to Dr. Kurien and raised the security

issues related to the Prime Minister’s request. But, like always Dr. Kurien

found a way out and planned to take Shastriji secretly to a village 10 kms

away from Anand called “Ajarpura” where he spent a night at a farmer’s

house named Ramanbhai. The security cars were taken straight to Anand.

During his night stay in Ajarpura the Prime Minister moved freely in the

village and asked several questions to the villagers regarding their life, Amul

and how the cooperative brought prosperity to their life. When the next day

he arrived at Anand, he was most attentive to understand the working of the

cooperative and applauded the work of the cooperative by giving an

inspiring speech.

The Prime Minister stayed at Dr. Kurien’s home and in the evening had a

detailed conversation where he mentioned his experience of having spent a

night at a village and talking to the farmers. He said that he thought

something special about Anand but he found nothing special. He added that

the soil of Anand is not as good as the Indo-Gangetic plains, the climate is

cold in winter and very hot in summer, rainfall is more or less similar to other

places. He remarked that he expected greenery but it was all dusty and

brown and the buffalos give less milk than the one in his home state of Uttar

Pradesh and lastly the farmers here are good people but less hard working

than the ones of Punjab. He was curious that what has then made this

cooperative as the Centre of attraction of the world? Dr. Kurien agreed to all

the observations of the Prime Minister but he mentioned one very important

thing that it is the farmer’s cooperative union, they are the owners of the

dairy and he was just an employee of the farmer. Being a dairy which is

owned by the farmers gives them the will power and the energy to face

every challenge and overcome it.

The Prime Minister was convinced by his explanation asked him to replicate

the Anand model in other parts of the country, which made Dr. Kurien

imagine about the social and economic prosperity they could bring about if

the model is replicated. He knew that it is going to be a tedious task but it

was not impossible as the man with the stature and class of Dr. Kurien will

always grow strong with the challenge. He started thinking and planning how

this big dream can be brought to life and be replicated throughout the

country.

1965

Mr Kurien becomes Dr. Kurien and Quest for Operation Flood

The year of 1965 was fairly momentous for the cooperative society and also

for Dr. Kurien. Michigan State University conferred an honorary degree of

"Doctor of Science" thereby promoting him from Mr. Kurien to "Dr. Kurien".

In September 1965, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was

registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. With this the dream of

replicating the Amul model throughout the country and bringing it to reality

became stronger.

Dr. Kurien started thinking on the plan and he worked in coordination with

Micheal Hales who was Food and Agriculture expert and a Harvard trained

visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) and H.M Dalaya.

Michael Hales noted down all the points to be taken into consideration to

replicate the plan and helped the cooperative to draft their plan to be

presented to the government seeking their support for the programme. The

amount that was required for replicating the Anand Model all over the

country was over 650 crore rupees as estimated by the cooperative team.

When the plan was presented to the state government and the other

authorities, it was rejected as the government had the control over the dairy

industry in India and they never wished to give that power to the villagers. It

also led to a lot of corruption and soon the cooperative realized that they

need to do something different. It was very easy to drop the plan but the

conviction of the leader and the cooperative was not going to shy away from

the challenge.

1968

Seizing the opportunity

There was a surplus production of milk in the European countries. So much

so, that they had no clue what to do with the surplus milk. At that time, the

Home Secretary, L.P Singh recommended Dr. Kurien to present their

proposal to these European countries at the event, which happened in Rome

called as the World Food Programme (WFP). Dr. Kurien realized that this

opportunity will never come again as these nations will never commit this

mistake again of over producing. Dr. Kurien visited Rome in October 1968 to

present NDDB's project proposal to a twenty four nation executive

committee of the WFP. The Agriculture Secretary of the Government of India

at that time was B.R Patel who introduced Dr. Kurien to the WFP committee

to present India's point of view. Dr. Kurien was waiting for this opportunity

and was all set to go. He started by elaborating on the importance of milk in

India. With a huge population there is a big space for dairy development in

India and his intention was to replicate the Anand model in various parts of

the country. He simply explained how he intended to use the donated milk to

sell at a regular price in India in order to capture the markets of Delhi,

Bangalore and other metros and milk rich cities and then generate the

money out of it to fund the Operation Flood programme where his major goal

was to make India a self-sufficient country in milk and milk products. He also

added that if a country donates milk worth $100 million then it can expect

10% return on investment hence the donation is in fact an investment. He

continued that he is not asking for such donations to sell them at a lower

rate and make money out of it as many countries do it but to use it to raise

money for Operation Flood to make India self-sufficient.

The elaborate and passionate presentation was liked and more importantly

very well received by the committee. Hence in March 1970, the proposal to

award India the food aid donation was signed between the Government of

India and the WFP.

The cooperative won the major battle here which kick started the Operation

Flood.

1970-1980

Phase 1 of Operational Flood/Billion Liter Idea

In a nutshell the approach was very simple. The first step was that the

donated milk products would be reconstituted to provide the Bombay, Delhi,

Calcutta and Madras liquid schemes with enough milk to obtain a

commanding share of the markets. Next, the funds realized from this

reconstitution and sale of donated products were used to resettle city-kept

cattle and help them to breed and to increase organized milk production, its

procurement and processing. Finally this entire operation would be directed

towards stabilizing the position of major liquid milk schemes in their markets.

1981-1985

Phase 2 of Operational Flood/Billion Liter Idea

The second phase of the operation flood, which lasted from 1981 to 1985,

was implemented with the seed capital raised from the sale of European

Economic Committee's (EEC) gifts as well as a World Bank loan of Rs 200

crore. With this phase, the number of milk sheds increased the outlets for

milk produced. By the end of this phase more than 43,000 village

cooperatives covering 4.25 million milk producers were established.

1985-1996

Phase 3 of Operational Flood/Billion Liter Idea

The third phase of the operation added 30,000 new dairy cooperatives to the

42,000 existing societies. Member education was intensified, and

significantly, the number of women members and women's Dairy

cooperative societies increased considerably. This phase focused on

assisting unions to expand and strengthen their procurement and marketing

infrastructure to manage the increasing volumes of milk (by 1989 the

number of milk sheds had grown to 173). Veterinary healthcare services,

feed and artificial insemination services for cooperative members were

extended. During this decade the increased emphasis was on research and

development on animal health and animal nutrition.

Operational Flood

Operation Flood:  one of the world's largest rural development programmes

Launched in 1970, Operation Flood has helped dairy farmers direct their own

development, placing control of the resources they create in their own

hands.  A National Milk Grid links milk producers throughout India with

consumers in over 700 towns and cities, reducing seasonal and regional

price variations while ensuring that the producer gets fair market prices in a

transparent manner on a regular basis. The bedrock of Operation Flood has

been village milk producers' cooperatives, which procure milk and provide

inputs and services,  making modern management and technology available

to members.  Operation Flood's objectives included :

Increase milk production ("a flood of milk")

Augment rural incomes

Reasonable prices for consumers

Programme Implementation

Operation Flood was implemented in three phases.

Phase I

Phase I (1970-1980) was financed by the sale of skimmed milk powder and

butter oil gifted by the European Union then EEC through the World Food

Programme.  NDDB planned the programme and negotiated the details of

EEC assistance.

During its first phase, Operation Flood linked 18 of India's premier milksheds

with consumers in India's  four major metropolitan cities:  Delhi, Mumbai,

Kolkata and Chennai.

Phase II

Operation Flood's Phase II (1981-85) increased the milksheds from 18 to 

136; 290 urban markets expanded the outlets for milk.  By the end of 1985,

a self-sustaining system of 43,000 village cooperatives covering 4.25 million

milk producers had become a reality.  Domestic milk powder production

increased from 22,000 tons in the pre-project year to 140,000 tons by 1989,

all of the increase coming from dairies set up under Operation Flood. In this

way EEC gifts and World Bank loan helped to promote self-reliance. Direct

marketing of milk by producers' cooperatives increased by several million

litres a day.

Phase III

Phase III (1985-1996) enabled dairy cooperatives to expand and strengthen

the infrastructure required to procure and market increasing volumes of

milk.  Veterinary first-aid health care services, feed and artificial

insemination services for cooperative members were extended, along with

intensified member education.

Operation Flood's Phase III consolidated India's dairy cooperative movement,

adding 30,000 new  dairy cooperatives to the 42,000 existing societies

organised during Phase II.  Milksheds peaked to 173 in 1988-89 with the

numbers of women members and Women's Dairy Cooperative Societies

increasing significantly.

Phase III gave increased emphasis to research and development in animal

health and animal nutrition.  Innovations like vaccine for Theileriosis , bypass

protein feed and urea-molasses mineral blocks, all contributed to the

enhanced productivity of milch animals.

From the outset, Operation Flood was conceived and implemented as much

more than a dairy programme.  Rather, dairying was seen as an instrument

of development, generating employment and regular incomes for millions of

rural people.   "Operation Flood can be viewed as a twenty year

experiment confirming the Rural Development Vision" ( World Bank

Report 1997c.)

SPEECHES BY DR. VERGHESE KURIEN

March 24, 1994 : XXV Dairy Industry Conference

August 30, 1991 : Vallabhai Patel Memorial Lecture

1991 - Cooperative Development group : Cooperative Leadership &

Cooperative Values

December 15, 1990 : Sardar Patel University

December 12, 1990 : Bal Dattatraya Award Lecture

December 13, 1989 : Shri Ram Memorial Lecture Cooperatives and

Capital

December 13, 1989 : Shri Ram Memorial Lecture

October 17, 1989 : Presentation of the World Food Prize at Washington

March 9, 1988 : Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Dimensions of Deve

January 16, 1988 : South Gujarat University

February 10, 1987 : Prof.J. C. Kane Memorial Lecture

September 3, 1986 : Third Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial IFFCO Lecture

May 13, 1986 : Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda

December 10,1983 : Socio-economic Impact of Operation Flood

January 29th, 1982 : 1st Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture

November 2, 1982 : Mohan Kumaramangalam Memorial Lecture

August 28th, 1982 : Breed improvement and milk production

October 17, 1981 : All India Women’s Conference

March 7, 1978 : Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Memorial Lecture

December 20, 1975 : National Investment and Finance anniversary

December 16, 1972 : Rajmitra A. D. Amin Memorial Lecture

DAIRY DEVELOPMENT THOUGH CO-OPERATIVES IN INDIA : Shri

Ramchandra Sarvotam Dubhashi Memorial Lecture

PUBLIC SERVICE BY PRIVATE PERSONS : Programme of Training for

Democracy

Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Lecture on Cooperative Marketing : Patel's Vision of the Indian Cooperative Movement.

THOUGHTS OF DR. VERGHESE KURIEN-

Dr. Verghese Kurien will always be remembered as a man with

strong will and self-belief.

Here are few of his thoughts.

India's place in the sun would come from the partnership between

wisdom of its rural people and skill of its professionals

The milk of India is produced by millions of small and marginal farmers

and landless labourers'. It is on their behalf and in their name that i

accept this high honour.

India needs to show an honest face, a kind face, a human face - and

not an arrogant face as the powerful nations of today (do). What you

need is good management with farmer power. Good management

gives this power the right direction and thrust. Nothing can stop the

farmers then. Least of all the MNCs.

Milk is the only commodity which has to be collected twice a day,

every day of the year. Thus, cooperatives are the only logical system

for the dairy industry. About 85% of the industry in the US, Denmark

and Australia is run by cooperatives. No other system will work for

milk. Who told you there is one Amul? There are more than 175 Amuls

across various districts (in Gujarat).

True development is not the development of land, or of cows; it is the

development of men and women.

Innovation cannot be mandated or forced on people; it is everywhere,

a function of the quality of the people and the environment. We need

to have enough skilled people working in a self- actuating environment

to produce innovation

I am like a cat, throw me wherever you want to, I will still stand on my

feet Eight hours for dairy, eight hours for family and eight hours for

sleep

My philosophy in life is to do as much good as I can to those who are

less fortunate, but I would like to live my life as a common man

The time has come for massive rural development in our country. The

task is daunting and the opposing is great, but I believe that it is also

the greatest opportunity that has ever been presented to a society

such as ours.

I trust, in a humble way - dairying is such as instrument of change: an

instrument not only of technical change, but also of economic and

social change. It is to such instruments that we must look to build the

India tomorrow.

All the tools are with us, in our Hands, to effect the transformation of

our predominantly rural society. Never has an elite had such an

opportunity.

In every successful grassroots cooperative, members trust their

leaders. Trust is the most cost-effective way to manage cooperatives.

If we can again create the environment, the opportunity, and the

education, our villages will provide a new generation of leaders who

will not only rebuild our cooperative movement, but who will help us to

build a truly great nation.

This process of modernization cannot merely demonstrate to producers

the application of such techniques as artificial insemination, improved

animal feeding etc. On the contrary, it inevitably shows the producers

that they can use modern science and technology to achieve the larger

objectives of their own lives.

To be quite honest, service to our nation's farmers was not the career I

had envisioned for myself. But somehow, a series of events swept me

along and put me in a certain place at a certain time when I had to

choose between one option and another.

Sardar Vallabhai Patel's vision has always been a source of great

inspiration. He knew that our rural people could never become really

free until they were liberated from the exploitation of moneylenders.

Sardar Patel believed that the way to address these problems was to

build rural institutions that would serve the farmers' economic

interests. He urged dairy farmers to organize milk cooperatives, which

would give them control over the resources they generated and

assigned Morarji Desai, his Deputy, to coordinate this effort.

I was fortunate that I enjoyed the support of all the governments that

came to power. I have been and continue to be, highly critical of our

bureaucracy. Fortunately for us, within our bureaucracy, there are a

number of people who are dedicated, patriotic and able.

I am in the business of empowerment. Milk is just a tool in that.

I am supposed to exploit the consumer; and I will (exploit them), but

not in a way that will create resentment. I have to milk the consumer.

And milk them I will, but gently.