White Revolution in India

White Revolution is associated with a sharp increase in the milk production. The White Revolution in India, also known as Operation Flood was launched in 1970s to make India self dependent in milk production. Dr Verghese Kurien is known as the father of The White Revolution in India. Currently India is the world’s largest milk producer.

India is the largest milk producing country in the world. It produced 146.31 million tonnes of milk in 2014-15.  India has low Milk productivity as compare to western countries; still it tops the list of largest milk producing country in the world because of the larger number of cattle in the country. Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana are the major milk producing states in India. India is also the largest producer of buffalo milk in the world.

History: During the 1964-65, Intensive Cattle Development Programme (ICDP) was introduced in the country in which a package of improved animal husbandry was given to cattle owners for promoting the white revolution in the country. Later on to increase the speed of the white revolution, a new programme named “operation flood” was introduced in the country by the National Dairy Development Board.

Which features were behind the success of 'Operation Flood' in India?

(i). Adoption of new methods in the case of cattle in animal husbandry.

(ii).Changing the composition of feed ingredients in different proportions.

The operation flood was launched in three phases:

Phase I (1970–1980) was financed by the sale of skimmed milk powder and butter oil donated by the European Union (then the European Economic Community) through the World Food Program.

Impact of Green Revolution on India

Phase II (1981–1985) increased the milk-sheds from 18 to 136; urban markets expanded the outlets for milk to 290. By the end of 1985, a self-sustaining system of 43,000 village cooperatives with 4,250,000 milk producers were covered.

Phase III (1985–1996) enabled dairy cooperatives to expand and strengthen the infrastructure required to procure and market increasing volumes of milk.  This phase added 30000 new dairy cooperatives which led to 73000.

Dr. Verghese Kurien is called the father of white revolution in India. India produces around 17% milk of the world. About 80% of the milk production in the country is in the organized sector while the remaining 20% is shared equally by the cooperatives and private diaries.

In India, over 1.50 lakh village level diary cooperative societies, spread over 265 districts in the country, collects about 26 million litres of milk per day.

At the conclusion it can be said that this operation was launched to help farmers to ensure their own development, placing control of the resources they created by their own hands. All this was achieved not merely by mass production, but by production by the masses.

sources:jagranjosh