Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension

Operation Flood

OPERATION FLOOD (OF)

• The foundation for a viable modern and self- sustaining dairy industry based on cooperative concepts was laid in 1970 in the form of Operation Flood.
• The Government of India set up the Indian Dairy Corporation to handle the commercial transactions under the title “INDIAN WFP PROJECTS 618”.
• The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) implemented this biggest dairy development project in the world in three Phases, and in fact it has made a tremendous impact on the dairy development scenario in the country. Dr.Verghese Kurien, the then Chairman of NDDB is rightly considered as the “ Father of White Revolution “ in India.
• Operation Flood is a unique approach to dairy development. During the 1970s, dairy commodity surpluses were building up in Europe, and Dr. Verghese Kurien, the founding chairman of NDDB, saw in those surpluses both a threat and an opportunity.
• The threat was massive exports of low-cost dairy products to India, which would have tolled the death-knell for India's staggering dairy industry.
• The large quantities that India was already importing had eroded domestic markets to the point where dairying was not viable. The opportunity, on the other hand, was built into the Operation Flood strategy.
• Designed basically as a marketing project, Operation Flood recognized the potential of the European surplus as an investment in the modernization of India's dairy industry. With the assistance of the World Food Programme, food aid - in the form of milk powder and butter oil - was obtained from the countries of the European Economic Community (EEC) to finance the programme.
• It was the first time in the history of economic development that food aid was seen as an important investment resource. Use of food aid in this way is anti-inflationary, it provides a buffer stock to stabilize market fluctuations and it can be used to prime the pump of markets that will later be supplied by domestic production.
• The overriding objective of all aid is or rather should be the elimination of the need for aid. The use of food aid as an investment is the most effective way of achieving this objective.
• Operation Flood is a programme designed to develop dairying by replicating the Anand Model for dairy development, which has stood the test of time for almost half a century.