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Verghese Kurien Quotes

Verghese Kurien , known as the 'Father of the White Revolution' in India, was a social entrepreneur whose "billion-litre idea", Operation Flood, the world's largest agricultural dairy development programme, made dairy farming India's largest self-sustaining industry and the largest rural employment provider, being a third of all rural income, with benefits of raising incomes and credit, riddance of debt dependence, nutrition, education, health, gender parity and empowerment, breakdown of caste barriers and grassroots democracy and leadership. It made India the world's largest milk producer from a milk-deficient nation, which doubled milk available per person and increased milk output four-fold, in 30 years.He pioneered the 'Anand pattern' of dairy cooperatives to replicate it nationwide, based on using suitable 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches simultaneously, to essentially a low-input, low-output Amul, his standalone cooperative then, and today India's largest food brand, where no milk from a farmer was refused and 70–80% of the price by consumers went as cash to dairy farmers who controlled the marketing, the procurement and the processing of milk and milk products as the dairy's owners, while hiring professionals for their skills and inducting technology, in managing it. A key invention at Amul, the world's first, was the production of milk powder from the abundant buffalo-milk, instead of from the conventional cow-milk, short in supply in India. Keen on a strong linkage between town and country, he surmounted skepticism and adversity with his indefatigable fighting spirit and outmaneuvering skills to capture a commanding share of the market of the city of Bombay , which got him wide attention.

He had the foresight to shrewdly use the clout resulting from its recognition, by employing his networking skills and resources at his command effectively, in negotiating international help and support from the governments of at least nine prime ministers of the country over more than five decades, all on terms set by him, making everyone who mattered come to Anand in Bombay's hinterland, where he stayed put, to see his showpiece venture, rather than meet them in the capital cities. Termed "a crocodile who swims in milk", he would steadfastly stave off meddling by politicians and bureaucrats while building his cooperatives to national scale and founding institutions, and encroachment by multinational companies on markets nurtured by him.

He also made India self-sufficient in edible oils, taking on a powerful, entrenched and violently resistant oil supplying cartel. Regarded as one of the greatest proponents of the cooperative movement in the world where, by unleashing the power of the people through people's own institutions, production by masses triumphs over mass-production, his work has lifted millions out of poverty in India and outside.



Wikipedia  

✵ 26. November 1921 – 9. September 2012
Verghese Kurien photo
Verghese Kurien: 24   quotes 0   likes

Famous Verghese Kurien Quotes

“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.”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

“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 can not fail.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 139.
Quote, Thought Leaders

“I had the benefit of background and infrastructure, success would have come rather easily and my independent contribution would not have been easily measurable. Here there was so much to be done - how could I not try? I had a trained butler. Mumbai was close. The Mathais were there but I would stay at the Taj for Rs 50 per night. I could afford it because in Anand I had no expenses at all. **When asked why with aristocratic background how reconciled to stay in a garage.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 143.
Quote, Thought Leaders

“Our laws have our mindset negative, dishonest, unproductive, obstructionist and indisciplined. [Kurien says] we must liberate our resources. Economic liberalization is aimed at liberating our material resources. Economic liberalization is aimed at liberating our material resources. We need to liberate our mental resources, viz. the mindset, from our anti-national and anti-work ethic labour laws.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 169.
Quote, Thought Leaders

“Where you have the will you have the skill; study, search, practice application; healthy irreverence; look for the kink in the thing, be curious.”

Verghese Kurien

His views on his multi-skills in p. 168.
Quote, Thought Leaders

“Is the democratic form of government successful in all parts of India? But the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. There can be no democracy in India unless you erect a plurality of democratic structures to underpin democracy, like the village cooperative which is a people’s institution.”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, The man who revolutionised white

Verghese Kurien Quotes

“Operation Flood has three major achievements to its credit: making dairying India’s largest self-sustainable rural employment program; bringing India self-sufficiency in milk production; trebling the nation’s milk production within a span of two and half decades to make India the world’s largest milk producer.”

Verghese Kurien

in p. 83
Quote, Our Leaders

World

“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 Multi national Companies|MNCs]].”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

“Over the last 20 years India’s milk production has tripled; it has increased from 20 million tonnes per annum to 60 million tonnes per annum…. Dairying has become the largest rural employment scheme in this country. And the government has had very little to do with it, even though we are a government institution.”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, The man who revolutionised white

Country

“The idea of setting up the NDDB was to replicate the Anand pattern in very state, in order to promote to genuinely farmer-owned cooperatives that would procure, process and markethis prime produce.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 83
Quote, Our Leaders

Idea

“I am glad that there are people like you in this country to do things that you”

Verghese Kurien

Nehru in p. 80
Quote, Our Leaders

People , Country

“Through Operation Flood, milk has been transformed from a commodity into a brand, from insufficient production to sufficient production, from rationing to plentiful availability; from loose unhygienic milk to milk that is pure and sure, from subjugation to as symbol of farmer’s economic independence, to being the consumer’s greatest insurance policy for good health.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 85
Quote, Our Leaders

Health

“While II was looking for a good enough excuse to run away from Anand; I was befriended by Tribhuvandas Patel, the young cooperative chairman and almost without realizing it I began to share his dream of building a strong organization that would free the famers from clutches of the middle man. In one of my weker moments I accepted |w:Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel|Tribhuvandas’s]] suggestion that I work for the nascent Kaira Cooperative. I have never regretted that decision in my 33-year career as an employee of the farmers.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 74
Quote, Our Leaders

Dreams , Decision , Strong

“Amul Dairy is a manifestation of what can happen when farmers assert themselves, fight for a cause.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 87
Quote, Our Leaders

Fight

“So, Mr Kreeber, what do you think of the natives now?" Kurien told a Nestle official who had come to do business with farmers of Anand. The company had earlier refused technology help to India as it could not let "natives handle a sensitive commodity like milk".”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

Business , Thinking , Help

“Milk is a highly perishable commodity, which is in short supply in summer and in excess supply in winter. The market can not contract and expand according to supply, therefore, you need balancing facilities. And once you have these balancing facilities, which you enable to carry forward the winter production and capture the market, procurement falls into your laps. This was the objective and methodology of Operation Flood.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 85
Quote, Our Leaders

Winter , Summer

“I am a servant to the farmers.”

Verghese Kurien

In How a farmers’ servant painted the nation white, 9 September 2012, 31 Deccember 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindustantimes.com/comment/columnsothers/how-a-farmers-servant-painted-the-nation-white/article1-927184.aspx,
Quote

“With liberalisation and globalisation, it seems to me, India's national boundaries have ceased to exist.”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, The man who revolutionised white

“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.”

Verghese Kurien

Quote, Amul builder Verghese Kurien's best quotes and pictures from Economic Times archives

“Dairying as Instrument of Change Kurien said. True development must be such that it brings the modernization process to the service of our majority, namely the rural poor. It must bring to these people not only the pittance which they need for their humble diet but also the means where by they can act together to obtain for themselves the benefits of modern science and organization and in that process the means whereby they can build for themselves, in every village, a society which is at peace with itself, concerned with its neighbours and able to see a bright for all its children.”

Verghese Kurien

In p. 81
Quote, Our Leaders

Children , People , Peace , Science

“I am sorry, I do not think it is a good thing, because if you have opened up this market under such terms, what it implies is that other countries can put their products into our markets. Are you aware that all those advanced countries subsidize their exports? Subsidies are as high as 65 per cent. Now if you have globalized, and the others are subsidising their exports, to what position have you exposed the Indian dairy industry? You have declared dairy products under OGL”

Verghese Kurien

Open General License
Quote, The man who revolutionised white

Thinking , Country

“Gifts can be dangerous and make a nation dependent on foreign aid. They can scuttle dairy development here.”

Verghese Kurien

In Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,
Quote

Dependency

“Amongst the management leaders in India, Kurien is not only an icon, he is a miracle.”

Verghese Kurien

By Dr.Raghunath Mashlekar, Director General of CSIR quoted in "Thought Leaders" in p. 170.

“Behind the the scenes of the fantastic success of Operation Flood is the nearly invisible skillful guding hand, vision and the brilliant mind and the unique management skill of Kurien.”

Verghese Kurien

By Norman Borlauge in "Our Leaders".

Success

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