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Table of Content

Particulars Page no.Reasons To select Verghese Kurien. 3Executive Summary 4White Revolution 5Dream Of Mr. Verghese Kurien 6Vision 6Amul Model 7Strategic Planning 9Leadership Qualities 10HR Practices 11Learning’s 12Conclusion 13References 14

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Reasons to Select Dr.Verghese Kurien Amul is reason enough, known as the Milkman of India. There’s more – Back in 1970s, when “Indian Industrial Reforms” was not even thought of,

he worked on forming one of the biggest co-operative movements for milkmen

No professionals, lack of Govt support, skepticism from the beneficiaries

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Dr. Verghese Kurien

Verghese Kurien (born November 26, 1921 at Kozhikode, Kerala) is called the father of the White Revolution in India. He is also known as the Milkman of India.

He was the chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.(GCMMF). GCMMF is an apex cooperative organization that manages the Amul food brand. He is recognised as the man behind the success of the Amul brand. Amul had a revenue of $1b USD in 2006-07.

He is credited with being the architect of Operation Flood -- the largest dairy development program in the world. Kurien helped modernise Anand model of cooperative dairy development and thus engineered the White Revolution in India, and made India the largest milk producer in the world. His uncle, John Mathai, was an economist who served as India's first Railway Minister and subsequently as India's Finance Minister.

Education

Kurien graduated in Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940 and then did B.E. (Mech) from the University of Madras. After completing his degree, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946. He then went to USA on a government scholarship to earn his Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (with distinction) from Michigan State University.

Career

When he came back to India, he was posted as a dairy engineer at the government creamery, Anand, in May 1949. Around the same time, the infant cooperative dairy, Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union (KDCMPUL), now famous as Amul -- was fighting a battle with the Polson Dairy, which was privately owned. Young Kurien, fed up with being at the government creamery, which held no challenge, volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, the Chairman of KDCMPUL, to set up a processing plant. This marked the birth of AMUL.

Personal life

Dr. Kurien belongs to the Syrian Christian community of India. He married his neighbor's daughter Molly. Molly was a gracious host and Dr Kurien's house used to serve as a guest house in Anand for the visiting dignitaries. He has one daughter Nirmala Kurien and a grandson, Siddharth.

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The White Revolution

Kurien has since then built this organization into one of the largest and most successful institutions in India. The Amul pattern of cooperatives had been so successful, in 1965, then Prime Minister of India, Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, created the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) (NDDB) to replicate the program on a nationwide basis citing Kurien's "extraordinary and dynamic leadership" upon naming him chairman.

Kurien also set up GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) in 1973 to sell the products produced by the dairies. Today GCMMF sells AMUL brand products not only in India but also overseas. He quit the post of GCMMF Chairman in 2006 following disagreements with GCMMF management.[1]

Kurien, plays a key role in many other organizations, ranging from chairing the Viksit Bharat Foundation, a body set up by the President of India to chairman of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand's (IRMA) Board of Governors in India. Dr. Kurien was mentioned by the Ashoka foundation (www.ashoka.ca) as one of the eminent present Day Social Entrepreneurs.

Kurien's life story is chronicled in his memoirs 'I too had a dream'.[2]

Dr. Kurien and his team were pioneers in inventing the process of making milk powder and condensed milk from buffalo's milk instead of cow's milk. This was the reason Amul became so successful and competed well against Nestle who only used cow milk to make powder and condensed milk. In India buffalo milk was the main raw material unlike Europe where cow milk is abundant.

India's first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru visited Anand to inaugrate AMUL "factory" and he embraced Dr. Kurien for his groundbreaking work.

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Dream of Dr. Verghese Kurien

"We must build on the resources represented by our young professionals and by our nation's farmers. Without their involvement, we cannot succeed. With their involvement, we cannot fail...Those of us who are of our country's urban elite often fail to recognise the tremendous resource that our nation's farmers represent. It is that resource, linked with the professional manager that can return India to its position as a surplus producer...True development involves building the institutional capacity to respond to new and diverse challenges; to adapt, to innovate and to create newer institutional forms ..." Verghese Kurien

Mission by 2020

• Vision :liberate our farmers from economic oppression and lead them to prosperity

• Mission 2020: dairy cooperatives of Gujarat turnover of Rs. 27000 crores by the year 2020

• Objective: is to ensure that the maximum share of the consumer’s rupee goes back to the milk producers

Awards

For his contribution to the dairy industry, Kurien has received top awards not only in India but also overseas.

1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.[3]

1965 Padma Shri

1966 Padma Bhushan (from president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan)

1986 Krishi Ratna Award (by the President of India)

1986 Wateler Peace Prize Award (of Carnegie Foundation )

1989 World Food Prize Laureate

1993 International Person of the Year (by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA)

1999 Padma Vibhushan

2003 [godfrey philips bravery award]

2007, Karmaveer Puraskaar Noble Laureates by iCONGO- Confederation of NGOs

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The Amul Model

The Amul Model of dairy development is a three-tiered structure with the dairy cooperative societies at the village level federated under a milk union at the district level and a federation of member unions at the state level.

Establishment of a direct linkage between milk producers and consumers by eliminating middlemen

Milk Producers (farmers) control procurement, processing and marketing Professional management

It operates in a three-tier structure: 

The village society: Replicating the Anand model, a village 'dairy cooperative society' (DCS) is formed by milk producers. Any producer can become a DCS member by buying a share and committing to sell his stock of milk exclusively to it. Each DCS has a milk collection centre where members take their daily stock of milk. Each member's milk supply is tested for quality, and the payments are based on the percentage of fat and the SNF content. At the end of each year, a portion of the DCS' profits is used to pay each member a patronage bonus, depending on the quantity of milk.

The district union: A 'district cooperative milk producers' union' is "owned" by the dairy cooperative societies. The union buys the milk from all the societies, and processes and markets the fluid milk and products. Most unions also provide a range of inputs and services to DCSs and their members, such as feed, veterinary care, artificial insemination. The employees of these district unions train and provide consulting services to support the local DCS leaders and staff. 

The state federation: The district level cooperative milk producers' unions in the state comprise the 'state federation', which is responsible for marketing milk and milk products of the member unions. Some federations also manufacture feed and support other union activities.

The Amul pattern involves people in their own development through cooperatives where professionals are accountable to leaders elected by producers. The institutional infrastructure — village cooperative, dairy and cattle feed plants, state and national marketing — is owned and controlled by farmers.

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The above three-tier structure was set-up in order to delegate the various functions, milk collection is done at the Village Dairy Society, Milk Procurement & Processing at the District Milk Union and Milk & Milk Products Marketing at the State Milk Federation.

The Amul model has helped India to emerge as the largest milk producer in the world. More than 13 million milk producers pour their milk in 1,28,799 dairy cooperative societies across the country. Their milk is processed in 176 District Co-operative Unions and marketed by 22 State Marketing Federations, ensuring a better life for millions.

DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

300 stock keeping units, 46 sales offices,

3,000 distributors,

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1,00,000 retailers with refrigerators and

5,00,000 non-refrigerated retail outlets.

Strategic Planning• Expansion of distribution network, creative marketing, consumer education

and product innovation, we will leverage effectively on rising income levels and growing affluence among Indian consumers.

• Tapping the rising demand for new value-added products. • Milk shed area will increase to 231 lakh kg per day (23.1 million kg per

day), at an annual growth rate of 4% • Installing Bulk Milk Chillers and Automatic Milk Collection Systems in all

our village cooperative societies. • Collect as much as 195 lakh kg per day (19.5 million kg per day) of milk in

the peak flush season.• Satellite dairies with combined processing and liquid milk packaging

capacity of 50 LKPD will be established in major metro market • We plan to double to processing capacity of our dairy plants to 20.7 million

kg per day, by 2020 • Milk drying capacity will also be enhanced by 200 MT’s per day • Plan to expand our cattle feed manufacturing capacity, more than four times

to 12,000 MT’s per day, by 2020. • Total investments envisaged for creating all the required infrastructure

would be Rs. 2,600 crores (Rs. 26 billion) till the year 2020

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Leadership Qualities

Farmer leaders Amul would often request Dr Verghese Kurien, the then Chairman of the GCMMF, to identify a professional of his calibre to lead their cooperatives in their areas. In response, Dr Kurien would say, “There are many Institutes to produce a Kurien, but there is none to produce a Tribhuvandas. You give me a Tribhuvandas and I will give you a Kurien.” Tribhuvandas, a respected freedom fighter, was well known for his ability to organize farmers of that region and to keep them together.

The above quip by Kurien implied that though there were schools to produce managers, the real challenge was to develop quality leadership among the farmers. I was not clear about the meaning of leadership – Who is a leader and how can leadership be developed? Does developing leadership mean putting in position of authority a few trusted and competent individuals who would share their vision with people and guide them to move in that particular direction? Or, is it possible to develop a large base of leaders – people who can enable others to solve their problems themselves, especially in rural India? These thoughts would make me restless and I would wonder where and how to look for answers. I was unclear and my search for convincing answers continued.

Several years later, when I took over as the Managing Director of the GCMMF to my good fortune, Dr Kurien was the founder Chairman of GCMMF. He allowed me a lot of space and freedom, so that I could dare to experiment towards developing some new models of leadership, and evolve some possible answers to my questions about the meaning and role of leadership. I share below a few such experiments with regard to self leadership development. I cannot claim to have obtained great success or final answers to my questions. In fact, there were some failures along with limited success. But I feel that nonetheless my learning’s are worth sharing.

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HR Practices

Amul is owned by the farmers and we only cater to them. Whatever Amul is today, it is because of the farmers. The Amul brand is owned and has been built by them. We, the professionals, work for them as mere facilitators.

We do not have anything extraordinary in HR. all policies have been designed keeping the betterment of farmers in mind. People who work in Amul are unique; they are passionate about catering to the farmer’s cause. The job at Amul is not just about earning bread and butter, it is about building the nation.

Promotions and increments are being used by MNCs and I am afraid to reduce my men to machines and cause them to lose vitality. As a result, they may lose originality and creativity; their own goals will become just another subset within the company’s goals. We don’t follow such a system here we want people who are passionate about their jobs.

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What do you learn from this personality?

Aspect Character

Attributes Open Minded

Humility

Resolve

Capabilities Learning & Knowledge

Business Acumen

Behavior Networking Skills

Honesty

Style Communication

Thinking Big

Never Say Die Spirit

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Conclusion A few blips aside, Kurien has been a successful leader beyond doubt Kurien’s life serves as a lesson in leadership The lessons from his life should be customized to whatever setting we

belong to and be applied

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References http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/op/2006/04/09/stories/

2006040900681800.htm - Address the fears Kurien has voiced http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1457538,prtpage-1.cms

- 'Milkman' of India quits 'Taste of India' http://www.mapsofindia.com/who-is-who/miscellaneous/verghese-

kurien.html http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/verghese-kurien.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verghese_Kurien

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