Amul also joins the campaign launched by former IRMA students.
Alumni of Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) have launched a campaign to mobilise people in their effort to urge government of India to award the highest civilian honour of the nation-Bharat Ratna-to Verghese Kurien, the father of the "White Revolution" in India. Asias largest milk brand Amul has also joined the campaign.
The list of honours and awards already bestowed on him is endless but the students strongly believe that Verghese Kurien is the most worthy candidate for Bharat Ratna award. The basic objective of the campaign is to mobilise people for getting this award conferred on Kurien.
"The students plan to send a petition to the president and the prime minister of India seeking award of ‘Bharat Ratna’ to Kurien in recognition for his immense contribution", said Varun Rattan Singh, IRMA alumni.
So far more than 1,000 people have already signed the petioned posted online and many more are likely to join as the campaign picks up. "Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which owns and markets Amul brand, has also supported the initiative taken by former students of IRMA.
The doyen of dairy cooperative movement, Kurien has been instrumental in transforming the lives of 13 million farmer families across the country. As the chief architect of ‘Operation Flood’, he was able to leverage an initial investment of Rs. 1000 crores into regular annual income of Rs. 1,00,000 crores for farmers of India. has been instrumental.
His vision is embodied in numerous institutions created by him such as AMUL, GCMMF, IRMA, NDDB, NCDFI, Anandalaya and various state dairy cooperative federations as well as district-level milk producers’ cooperative unions.
Interestingly, on 13 June 2009, Kurien, who has not been in the best of health recently, will complete 60 years of an amazing journey that he started on 13 June 1949, when, as a young bachelor full of zest for life, he landed in Anand – a town which he transformed into the milk capital of India.