The other name by which Dr. Verghese Kurien was known as “father of the white revolution.” Dr. Verghese Kurien was the one who can be said to be responsible for the success of the dairy development program in the world.
Now people associate his name with the brand Amul. He was the chairperson of Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation ( GCMMF ) .
Dr. Verghese Kurien was born in Kerala on 26 November 1921. He did his graduation in 1940 in Physics from Madras.
After that, he did his bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and left for the USA on a government scholarship to complete Masters from Michigan State University. Meanwhile he also took a special training in diary engineering in Bangalore.
Dr. Verghese returned to India in 1948 and attached himself to Government Dairy Department. He was made the engineer of a milk powder factory in Gujarat in 1949.
At that time, a co-operative dairy KDCMPUL was in deep waters though it had been formed recently as its fight for survival was against a private diary company Polson Diary.
He found the work very challenging, thus giving up his government job, and decided to help Mr. Patel, the chairperson of KDCMPUL, get a processing plant ready. This is how Amul came into being.
In 1965 Lal Bahadur Shastri made NDDM repeat Amul’s success story all over the country. In 1973, GCMMF was set to do marketing of all products of the diary.
It was only because of Dr. Kurein that India could become the biggest milk producer in the world.
Dr. Verghese has been awarded many honors and awards, Padma Shri International Person of the Year by the World Dairy Expo, Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie Foundation, Padma Bhushan, and Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership Krishi Ratna Award.
