The Kerala Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (KCMMF), which owns the iconic Milma dairy brand, has slammed the Centre's decision to include private sector representation on the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), calling it an attempt to undermine the body's autonomy.
According to KS Mani, Chairman of the KCMMF, the plan to include representatives from private dairies on the NDDB director board will severely undermine the country's cooperative dairy sector.
The Ministry is seeking feedback on the proposed revisions, which include a plan to appoint an additional director to represent the private dairy business for a three-year term. Ex-officio directors on the boards of subsidiary firms shall be the directors nominated to NDDB.
Farmers will be Impacted
Milma will express her strong opposition to the proposed revisions to the Centre, as they would jeopardize NDDB's autonomy and hurt the interests of millions of dairy producers and the dairy cooperative movement as a whole.
Milma will also seek the state government's help in pressuring the Centre to reject the proposal by emphasising the state's position on the subject, he added.
NDDB's methodical, scientific, and innovative activities helped India become the world's largest milk producer despite its predominantly agrarian population.
Rather than inducting members from private sector dairies into NDDB, Mani believes the Centre could encourage commercial dairies to tap into NDDB's extensive technical knowledge and domain expertise by selecting senior NDDB officials onto their director boards.
The NDDB was established with the goal of developing the dairy cooperative industry across India, and the success of Amul in Gujarat was so important that the model's soul and spirit were copied as the Anand pattern across the country, he said.
According to him, the proposed amendment to allow private representation might jeopardize the board's main duty of "replicating Anand pattern dairy cooperatives across the country."
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