December 2012

The man responsible for bringing white revolution in India and founder of world’s largest dairy company Amul, Verghese Kurien (90) took his last breath in a hospital at Nadiad, on 9 September 2012. The body of Kurien was cremated in the ultramodern crematorium at Kailash Bhumi in the milk capital of India- Anand, Gujarat in presence of his admirers and staff members of milk cooperatives. Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) was founded under the chairmanship of the visionary. He was appointed to be the founder Chairman of National Dairy Development Board in the year 1965 by the then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri. He played a major role in different organizations like, he chaired the Vikshit Bharat Foundation and been a Chairman for Board of Governors of Institute of Rural Management, Anand.

Kurien, who was born in Kerela on 26 November 1921, in a Syrian Christian family was a mechanical engineer by education with dairy engineering as his minor subject. He was sent to Anand by the first home minister of Indian Union, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel to look after the existing problems of farmers in 1949 and since then Anand turned up to be the home for the Milkman of India. He along with his team is known as the pioneer, who invented the process of transforming buffalo’s milk into condensed milk as well as powder instead of the cow’s milk. He was a co-writer of the film Manthan-based on white revolution, directed by Shyam Benegal in 1976.
His vision and leadership together helped the then milk deficit country India to be the largest milk producing country of the world. India’s contribution to the total milk production of the world is about 17%. Because of his contributions to the nation, Verghese Kurien won awards namely Magsaysay Award, the world food prize and India’s second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan. Now, Kurien is survived by his grandson, Siddharth, daughter Nirmala Kurien and his wife.

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