T. Nanda Kumar will be the new Chairman of
the National Dairy Development Board
(NDDB), replacing Amrita Patel who has been holding the post since 1998.
Nanda Kumar, currently Member of the National
Disaster Management Authority, is slated to take over from March 1. “His name
has been cleared by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the
Prime Minister. Patel is currently on extension and will remain as Chairman
till February 28,”.
Nanda Kumar will
be the first ever person from the Indian Administrative Service to hold the
position of NDDB Chairman. Both Patel and her illustrious predecessor Verghese
Kurien, who was chairman from 1965 to 1998, have dairy professional
backgrounds.
The NDDB Act requires the chairman to be a
person “professionally qualified in…dairying, animal husbandry, rural
economics, rural development, business administration or banking”.
In this case, Nanda Kumar’s role as Secretary
in the Food and Agricultural Ministries during 2006-11 – a period when India
managed to successfully deal with impending grain shortages against a
background of soaring global prices and the calamitous drought of 2009 – is
what seems to have prompted his choice.
“The grain
problem is more or less manageable today. But the same cannot be said about
milk and vegetables, where consumption is growing and NDDB has a huge role to
play. The organisation has not done enough in the last ten years and needs more
decisive management. Nanda Kumar, given his past experience, was seen to fit
the bill and it was the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar who recommended his
name”, the sources added.
NDDB’s heydays were in 1970-95, when it
implemented the Operation Flood
programme that made India self-sufficient in milk production and end
reliance on imports of milk powder and butter oil. But since then, there have
been two major developments.
The first is the sudden surge in consumption
of dairy products with the pick-up in growth and overall rising incomes. Milk
now accounts for largest share of food spend in urban India and next only to
cereals in rural areas.
The second is the role of the private sector.
While till the early nineties, there were hardly any large organised private
dairies barring the odd Nestle India or Milkfood Ltd, it is this sector that
has accounted for the bulk of the new capacities created since then.
The private sector has an estimated 55 per
cent share in total organised milk procurement in the country today, while the
cooperatives – with the exception of Amul or Karnataka’s Nandini – have
practically stopped growing.
“NDDB needs to change its mandate. If the
idea is augment milk production, there is no reason why it shouldn’t extend
funding to private dairies, especially in back-end activities such as
artificial insemination, veterinary support and fodder development,” a sector
expert pointed out.