OPERATION FLOOD
The National Dairy Development Board in 1969 designed a dairy development programme to lay the foundation for a viable, self-supportive national dairy industry. The programme sought to link rural milk production to urban milk marketing through dairy cooperatives. In July 1970 with technical assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the programme was launched as Operation Flood (OF).
It was the world's biggest dairy development programme which made India, a milk-deficient nation, the largest milk producer in the world, by 1998. It made dairy farming India’s largest self-sustainable rural employment generator. All this was achieved not merely by mass production, but by production by the masses.
The Anand pattern experiment at the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producer’s Union, better known as Amul, a single, cooperative dairy, was the engine behind the success of the programme. Dr. Verghese Kurien was the founder-chairman of NDDB and Tribhuvandas Patel was the chairman at Amul at the time. Dr. Kurien gave the necessary thrust using his professional management skills to the programme, and is recognized as its architect.
Dr. Kurien’s Amul experiment in Gujarat soon blossomed into the much larger Operation Flood, spread over 23 states, 170 districts and 90,000 village cooperatives. It changed India from an importer to the world’s largest producer and exporter of milk.
Operation Flood has created a national milk grid linking milk producers throughout India with consumers in over 700 towns and cities, reducing seasonal and regional price variations while ensuring that the producer gets a major share of the price consumers pay, by cutting out middlemen. By reducing malpractices, it has helped dairy farmers direct their own development, placing control of the resources they create in their own hands.
The bedrock of Operation Flood has been village milk producers' co-operatives, which procure milk and provide inputs and services, making modern management and technology available to members. Operation Flood's objectives included: * Increase milk production ("a flood of milk") * Augment rural incomes * Fair prices for consumers
Operation Flood was implemented in three phases.
Phase I * Operation Flood Phase I spanned for a period of about nine years from 1970–79. During its first phase, Operation Flood linked 18 of India's premier milk sheds with consumers in India's major metropolitan cities: Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Thus establishing mother dairies in four metros. The objectives of commanding share of milk market and speed up development of dairy animals respectively hinter lands of rural areas with a view to increase both production and procurement.
Phase II * Operation Flood Phase II spreading from 1981 to 1985 increased the number of milk sheds from 18 to 136; 290 urban markets expanded the outlets for milk. European Economic Community gifts and World Bank loans helped promote self-reliance. Direct marketing of milk by producers' cooperatives increased by several million litres a day.
Phase III * Operation Flood Phase III (1985–1996) enabled dairy cooperatives to expand and strengthen the infrastructure required to procure and market increasing volumes of milk. Veterinary first-aid health care services, feed and artificial insemination services for cooperative members were extended, along with intensified member education. Phase III consolidated India's dairy cooperative and contributed to the enhanced productivity of milk producing animals.
From the outset, Operation Flood was conceived and implemented as something much more than a dairy programme. Rather, milk producing was seen as an instrument of development, generating employment and regular income for millions of rural people.
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