Amul Story Essay Example

30 dairy plants, under the renowned AMUL brand name. The combined processing capacity of these plants is 11. 6 million litres per day, with four dairy plants http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Amul 9-08-2010 Amul - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 3 of 10 having processing capacity in excess of 1 million Litres per day.

The farmers of Gujarat own the largest state of the art dairy plant in Asia – Mother Dairy, Gandhinagar, Gujarat – which can handle 2. 5 million litres of milk per day and process 100 MTs of milk powder daily. During the last year, 3. 1 billion litres of milk was collected by Member Unions of GCMMF. Huge capacities for milk drying, product manufacture and cattle feed manufacture have been installed.

All its products are manufactured under the most hygienic conditions.

All dairy plants of the unions are ISO 9001-2000, ISO 22000 and HACCP certified. GCMMF (AMUL)’s Total Quality Management ensures the quality of products right from the starting point (milk producer) through the value chain until it reaches the consumer. Ever since the movement was launched fifty-five years ago, Gujarat’s Dairy Cooperatives have brought about a significant social and economic change to our rural people. The Dairy Cooperatives have helped in ending the exploitation of farmers and demonstrated that when our rural producers benefit, the community and nation benefits as well.

The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. annot be viewed simply as a business enterprise. It is an institution created by the milk producers themselves to primarily safeguard their interest economically, socially as well as democratically. Business houses create profit in order to distribute it to the shareholders. In the case

of GCMMF the surplus is ploughed back to farmers through the District Unions as well as the village societies. This circulation of capital with value addition within the structure not only benefits the final beneficiary – the farmer – but eventually contributes to the development of the village community.

This is the most significant contribution the Amul Model cooperatives has made in building the Nation. The Birth of Amul and development of India’s Dairy Cooperative Movement The birth of Amul at Anand provided the impetus to the cooperative dairy movement in the country. The Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited was registered on December 14, 1946 as a response to exploitation of marginal milk producers by traders or agents of existing dairies in the small town named Anand (in Kaira District of Gujarat). Milk Producers had to travel long distances to deliver milk to the only dairy, the Polson Dairy in Anand.

Often milk went sour as producers had to physically carry the milk in individual containers, especially in the summer season. These agents arbitrarily decided the prices depending on the production and the season.

Milk is a commodity that has to be collected twice a day from each cow/buffalo. In winter, the producer was either left with surplus / unsold milk or had to sell it at very low prices. Moreover, the government at that time had given monopoly rights to Polson Dairy (around that time Polson was the most well known butter brand in the country) to collect milk from Anand and supply it to Bombay city in turn.

India ranked nowhere amongst milk producing countries in the world in 1946. Angered

by the unfair and manipulative trade practices, the farmers of Kaira District approached Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (who later became the first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of free India) under the leadership of the local farmer leader Tribhuvandas Patel. Sardar Patel advised the farmers to form a Cooperative and supply milk directly to the Bombay Milk Scheme instead of selling it to Polson (who did the same but gave low prices to the producers).

He sent Morarji Desai (who later became Prime Minister of India) to organize the farmers.

In 1946, the farmers of the area went on a milk strike refusing to be further oppressed. Thus the Kaira District Cooperative was established to collect and process milk in the District of Kaira in 1946. Milk collection was also decentralized, as most producers were marginal farmers who were in a position to deliver 1-2 litres of milk per day. Village level cooperatives were established to organize the marginal milk producers in each of these villages. The Cooperative was further developed & managed by Dr.

V Kurien along with Shri H M Dalaya. The first modern dairy of the Kaira Union was established at Anand (which popularly came to be ttp://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Amul 29-08-2010 Amul - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Page 4 of 10 known as AMUL dairy after its brand name). Indigenous R&D and technology development at the Cooperative had led to the successful production of skimmed milk powder from buffalo milk – the first time on a commercial scale anywhere in the world. The foundations of a modern dairy industry in India were thus laid since India had one of the largest buffalo

populations in the world.

The success of the dairy co-operative movement spread rapidly in Gujarat.

Within a short span five other district unions – Mehsana, Banaskantha, Baroda, Sabarkantha and Surat were organized. In order to combine forces and expand the market while saving on advertising and avoid a situation where milk cooperatives would compete against each other it was decided to set up an apex marketing body of dairy cooperative unions in Gujarat. Thus, in 1973, the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation was established. The Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd.

which had established the brand name AMUL in 1955 decided to hand over the brand name to GCMMF (AMUL).