Kurien v/s Amrita: Is the war over?

The long drawn out battle for power between KV Kurien and his one-time protege Amrita Patel, chairman of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is believed to died down.

Clarifying her stand over the entire episode that took place on Monday morning at Anand, Amrita Patel said, "I am truly saddened that it has happened in this way. I have just come out of a Board meeting of Anandalaya School and learnt that Kurien has resigned as Chairman of GCMMF. Kurien has without doubt made an invaluable contribution to the growth of our co-operative dairy industry."

NDDB was created under the Act of Parliament to follow the cooperative strategy in line of Amul model where the ownership and management are in the hands of representatives of farmers, he said.

Talking to the media, Kurien said the root cause of his opposition to the present policies of NDDB was that the farmers are losing their ownership to the government-owned corporate.

"Today under the control of the present chairman of NDDB, all that has been accomplished lies under threat," he argued.

According to him, the ownership under NDDB is moving out of hand of the farmers into the government owned corporate, where the dairy farmers and their federations will have no say.

He added the board of directors opposing his chairmanship are the same people who had elected him unanimously, three months ago.

About the recent turn of tide against him, Kurien said, "I don't know what consideration has prompted them to adopt such a course of action. I could only think that the recent decision of board members is an orchestrated act involving people at a very high level."

Showing his anguish over the entire episode, he said, "I am pained by the recent move of the GCMMF board against me." He concluded by saying, "NDDB is building its own empire."

Amrita Patel said, "NDDB and GCMMF are two separate bodies, so why is NDDB being dragged into the entire matter."

Justifying her act of transition of the cooperative bodies, she said, "NDDB is turning cooperative bodies into professionalised bodies."

Talking about Kurien, she said, "We cannot take away the credit of Kurien's contribution to the cooperative movement. We will find his name always in the history of this country."