White Revolution

White revolution refers to “Operation Flood” which is considered as the breakthrough project of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) of India for the very first time and it was the largest dairy development initiative in the world at that period. It was launched by Verghese Kurien in a city called Anand that was located in the Kheda district that is presently known as the Anand district of Gujarat on 13th January 1970. This program has helped to transform India from a milk-deficit state to the largest milk-producing country in the world. In the year 1998, it surpassed the United States that was known as the largest milk-producing nation till then. In the year 2018, India produced milk that accounted for almost 22.4% of the total milk output around the globe. These figures clearly demonstrate that within a span of 30 years from the time the program was launched, India has just doubled the milk availability per person percentage within the country. It resulted in making dairy farming the biggest self-sustainable rural development project in India.

The major force that acted for the successful running of the project “Operation flood” was the formation of the cooperative society by the milk-producing farmers of the Kheda district of Gujarat in the year 1946 to oppose the policies made by the private milk farms to exploit the farmers. The main motive of the operation flood project is to provide farmers with the right to direct their own developments along with providing them with the direct control of the resources they are creating. Thus it was not only the project that was restricted to mass production but also witnessed production by masses. These phenomena define the white revolution in India. This article is subjected to answer a prime question related to the operations that were carried out in various phases is “what is white revolution”.

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The Objective of “Operation Flood”

The main objective of the National Dairy development board is to launch a well-planned dairy development in the year 1969 is to support the indigenous milk farms of the country by making a self-supportive and viable program. This program is aimed at linking the milk production taking place in rural India to the strategic marketing of milk and milk products in Urban India through various cooperative societies. There was one breakthrough technology that completely revolutionized the entire organized dairy sector in India was the idea of creating skim milk powder out of buffalo milk. Harichand Megha Dalaya was the man behind the revolution as he was the first one to invent a spray-dryer from buffalo milk for the first time in the world. This revolution laid the foundation of Amul, the biggest dairy cooperative in India that tried the Anand pattern experiment.

Operation flood was the program that finally led to the “White Revolution” in India that was directed by Verghese Kurien who was the founder of the biggest dairy co-operative in India, Amul and was also appointed the chairman of NDDB by then prime minister of India, Sri Lal Bahadur Shastri after Kurien was recognized as the prime force behind the revolution and had architected the entire movement. This program objected to creating a widespread dairy grid that would connect the producers of dairy directly to the consumers and it was successful in creating such a network in over 700 cities and towns. This finally resulted in the reduction of the seasonal and the regional price variation of milk and dairy products but it ensured that the producers get the maximum profit of selling by eradicating the middlemen. The village milk producers’ co-operative acted as a bedrock of the project “operation flood”. Their main function was to produce and procure milk and to provide the inputs and services. Their functioning made the modern management and the technologies available to all the members in the framework.

Thus the main objectives of Operation flood are as follows:

1. Increase the milk production throughout India

2. Eliminating the middleman to support in raising the income of the dairy farmers in rural India.

3. Regulating a constant fair price of the milk and dairy products to the consumers with seasonal or regional price fluctuation.

4. To increase the income of the participating dairy farmers to rule out as much poverty as possible.

5. Ensuring a regular supply of milk throughout the country.

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Implementation of the Program “Operation Flood”

Verghese Kurien with technical assistance from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) along with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the program was initially launched by the name of Milk Marketing and Dairy Development. But Verghese Kurien did not want to settle down for anything less than a name that is soulful. Thus later the name of the program was then changed to Operation Flood. It was a perfect tile that gave the right amount of aggression to the project and was very dear to him. The operation was carried out in three different phases as follows:-

Phase I: Phase one lasted for ten years starting from the year 1970 and continued till 1980. This phase was financed by the selling of the skimmed milk powder along with the butter oil that was supplied by the European Economic Committee (EEC) under the World Food Programme (WFP). Initially, the planning was done by the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) of India while discussing and negotiating the extent of the technical assistance that EEC will be willing to provide. During the first phase, the “operation flood” program linked about 18 major premium milk shades in India and then connected them to the consumers residing in major metropolitan cities of the country, namely, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Chennai. This gave birth to the Mother Dairy firm for the first time in these four major metropolitan cities of India. Though phase I of the operation flood was meant to be completed by 1975 it stretched until late 1979, which summed up to a total cost of 116 crore Indian rupees. The major aims that were decided at the starting of phase I of the “Operation Flood” program were as follows:

1. To improve the dairy sector initially in four major metropolitan cities, namely, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai through vigorous marketing strategies

2. An increase in the share for the producers of the milk market 

3. Encourage and plan for speeding up of the dairy animals in the rural areas to increase in production of milk and milk products along with the procurements.

Phase II: Phase II of the flood operation continued for the following five years starting from the year 1981 to 1985. The milkshakes that were incorporated under the dairy grid increased in number from just 18 in the first phase to 136 in the second phase of the project along with the huge expansion of the dairy outlets to almost 290 in numbers. By the end of the second phase in the year 1985, the project had covered 43000 cooperatives in the villages under which 4,250,000 milk producers were covered. Domestic milk powder production also increased from 22000 in the first phase of the project to almost 140,000 tons by the year 1989. All these rises in milk production happened under the operation flood. This is the way EEC has helped and the loans from the world bank have promoted self-reliance within the country. Because of higher benefits, the producers under several co-operatives had given rise to the production of milk per day. 

Phase III: Phase II of the flood operation continued for the following ten years starting from the year 1985 to 1966. This phase has powered the cooperatives to expand their infrastructure and strengthen their system in order to adopt the market and procure increasing volumes of milk to meet the higher demands. With the rise in the producers’ cooperatives massively in the rural areas, there is a sharp rise in the artificial insemination market, livestock feeds and veterinary care services within the country. With the services expanding massively, there was also the incorporation of educating the massive scale of producers about livestock care. In phase III of the project, there was a sharp rise in the dairy cooperatives as 30,000 new producers’ cooperatives opened. Thus this phase was marked as the dairy cooperative movement. There was also a peak rise in the milk-sheds with a total count of 173 sheds in the year 1988-89.

Features of Operation Flood

The main features of operation flood are as follows:

1. Development and adoption of new methods to milk cows.

2. For better adjustment to the external conditions and increase in production, several permutations were done in the feed of the livestock.

3. The cost of different producers was regulated and fixed on a sliding scale.