COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT AND IMPACT OF LIBERALIZATION ON DAIRY DEVELOPMENT........5

COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT AND IMPACT OF LIBERALIZATION ON DAIRY DEVELOPMENT

DR. Balraj Vishnoi

Ministry of agriculture data shows that except for Gujarat and Karnataka where Dr Kurien made the cooperative movement strong and vibrant, growth in milk production by milk producing  cooperative societies was only 9.3% during 2005-2009; available data dhows that growth in milk production by cooperative sector outside Gujarat and Karnataka was less than the national average of 44%. Due to these two states the cooperative sector put benchmark of an average growth in milk production to 20.6%. Thus highest contribution to the growth in milk production for the rest of India was private sector but not cooperative sector thus liberalization policy  hammers cooperative movement’s basic objective of self reliant rural India.
Liberalisation policy of National Dairy Development Board is a blow for Cooperative Movement in India.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Private sector to grow at higher rate thus weakens  the cooperative movement was the manner in which NDDB allowed Mother Dairy to purchase milk from the private sector  and not the cooperative sector is a drawback of Cooperative Movement in India. Thus NDDB failed to fulfill the mandate of Parliament .Thus  destruction of the vision glorified by father of milk revolution Dr Verghese Kurien and the founder of ‘Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation’ (GCMMF), success of the Amul brand is world known.
 Dr. Kurien continuously promoted the cooperatives in India with role model from Gujarat. Late prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was so much admirer of Kurien’s vision that he decided the his approach to guide the national dairy development policy of country and thus on shshtrji’s initiative the NDDB was set up in 1965. . The basic objective of the NDDB was to replicate the Amul model and its first chairman was Dr Kurien to head the institution. Dr. Kurien  was succeeded  by Amrita Patel in 1998.
Amrita Patel converted divisions of NDDB into wholly owned subsidiaries, thus spinning them away from direct parliamentary supervision. It also enabled key directors of NDDB to get perquisites from a host of corporate entities and NDDB is the sole shareholder of all of these companies.
 Kurien’s commitment to transparency: salute
Today Chairman NDDB and tried to hide all details mainly  financial details from the public for a company formed of public funds mainly. Strangely balance sheets of the subsidiaries are not available for scrutiny of the public  for eg. Mother Dairy and this was critisized by the Central Information Commission for not disclosing information despite of being a recipient of public funds.  After media like DNA news was repeatedly behind NDDB for 4 years and written a series of articles focused on NDDB; thereafter it decided to put 3 annual reports on NDDB website. But reports not available for glorious 40 odd years dedicated by Kurien for public consumption. Thus a blow for transparency and openness.
Specialization in Dairy Cooperatives: a challange
Today Dairy Industry looks under  sad mood (according to media report) after T Nanda Kumar as Patel’s successor in NDDB due to :                                                                                                                     1) T N Kumar is a retired IAS officer & the NDDB chairman’s post is an executive post drawing a decent remuneration.
2) Kumar is very less expertise of the milk industry. According to Cooperative sources indication Sh. Kurien chose the headquarter of NDDB in Anand was meaningfull as Gujarat ensured that population having god knowledge of matters related to milk and cooperative societies.
3) The NDDB Act being needful of the fact that the chairman should be “professionally qualified in...dairying, animal husbandry, rural economics, rural development, business administration or banking”  on the other hand sh Kumar’s last posting was as a member of the National Disaster Management Authority.
4)  NDDB being guide for formulation of the national dairy development policy of country and  the cooperatives like GCMMF, RCDF operate as a true representative of farmers and are run by professionally qualified managers. In most other states, the cooperatives are managed by civil servants, function more as government bodies and are weak representatives of farmers.
5) Cooperative Model for dairy development and NDDB have bureaucratic problems as its motive was introduced for transforming cooperatives to work as expertise with efficiency and as prominent representatives of animal farmers.
6) With the liberalization of cooperatives in dairy sector ; there emrege Challenges by  private sector dairies with prominent share in the dairy industry in India except Gujarat & Karnataka.