Dairying and dairy industry: my on and off involvement in its practice, the profession, politics and policy

I realise that my association with dairying is almost 4 decades old. It started during my childhood. During my childhood we used to have both buffaloes and cows. As elder one of my brothers and sisters, I used to take care of the cattle with the help of an attendant. This used to involve taking the cattle to the nearby canal for washing, feeding them grass as well as powder brawn with water, going to our farm field to cut green grass, milking them, taking care of the calves and occasional visit for the breeding services provider. We used to have an attendant who did the daily chores. My responsibility included overseeing his work and when he was absent my tasks were to do his duty. My mother and myself used to share some of the work. Using the cattle dung, me and my mother used to prepare dung cakes which involves pressing and softening the dung through mixing water and dancing/stamping on the pile of dung. Later these were prepared into cakes and pasted on the wall for drying. After these cakes are dried, we used to use them for heating water for bathing and preparing food etc. There were some gobar gas units in the village but we never tried as we never had more than 2 to 3 cattle. Providing drinking water to the cattle involved taking water from the well through buckets by using a rope on a rotating metal/wooden wheel. In summer, drawing such huge quantities of water is really hard work. Among the cattle we even had one jersey cow. As we grew, we found it difficult to maintain the cattle and got rid of them. one of the reasons is the difficulty in getting an attendant. While attending to these duties, I also gave importance to my studies where I used to get decent percentage and there was not much to complain. I never realised this childhood tasks would give me strong bonding with the Dairy industry at later stages of my life. After my Intermediate in my native village (Vuyyuru), I moved to Kurnool for my Degree(3 years 1981-84), then to Hyderabad for my DCA (1 year- 1984-85), then to Anand for study at IRMA(PGDRM- 1985-87). My association with dairying and dairy industry re-started with my admission into IRMA. Before the course started itself, we were taken to Amul dairy facotory/plant, the village milk collection cooperatives, the cattlefeed factory in Kanjari along with big silos etc. Appeared to be good. Then as part of the classroom sessions there were several case studies (typical management education pattern), concept notes, quzzes, statistical calculations, strategic exercises etc involving all sorts of management theory and practice such as HR, finance, strategy, production/operations, quantitative techniques, micro/macro economics etc. Then as part of one of the three project works, I have chosen to work with Amul along with one of my classmates with whom/whose organisation, I am associated (even)now. The topic was to look at the possibility of decentralising Kapadwanj and other chilling centres under the Amul fold. We chose to do the project for Amul for a different reason which is not relevant now. This is the last project of the three projects we are supposed to carry out as part of the curriculum. Though my contribution to the project was less, we could complete the report within time. Then the time came for campus recruitment. Only Amul gave me an offer of appointment though my preference was not exactly Amul. Since I had to start somehwere and I cant be jobless, took the offer and joined amul in April 1987. My work with Amul involved working with basically Production (Milk products) department or Factory, Cattlefeed factory, Societies division and to a little extent Quality Control division and Technical Services division. Since I wanted to do computer related work in the organisation, I was doing all sorts of number crunching in different divisions of Amul. In production division it was mostly related to analysis of milk arrived at the factory using Lotus 123 and dBase. I was also looking at the quality aspects some of the products such as butter, ghee etc. Then I was placed in Kanjari Cattlefeed factory, 20 kms away from Anand. I was staying in the Quarters and analysing the usage of raw material from the linear programming and OR point of view. The smell of cattlefeed factory premises is such that it always remained in my mind for long time. Then I worked in Societies division again looking at the number crunching aspects using computer software Lotus 123 and dbase III+ for a variety of needs such as to understand the sourage of milk, apportioning the scarce cattlefeed to the socities based on their milk procurement so on and so forth. Sometime in 1989 I left Amul in a hurry. After an year or so I joined Tata Consultancy Services first in Chennai and then moved to Hyderabad. During the 5 years I was with TCS I did not do anything related to dairy Industry. But I saw the world changing during this period. Liberalisation was initiated. In the process the Union government introduced Milk and Milk Products Order. This was vehemently opposed by the gods and goddesses of milk cooperatives. One prominent statement from the God was- "Tatas can not set up a dairy". In Apr/June 1995 the Government of Andhra Pradesh enacted a liberal cooperative law called MACS Act. In Dec 1995 I joined the organisation, Cooperative Development Foundation which drafted the MACS Act for the AP government and my responsibility to propagate and popularise the law within AP among several stakeholders. After an year or so the dairy cooperative promoters started showing in the legislation and its adoption- basically conversion from the old 1964 platform to the new MACS act platform. Thus I started getting involved in the dairy industry. In the process I attended the General Body, board, core task group meetings of Sangam dairy (Gunturu). Krishna dairy and Vizag dairy for preparing the resolutions, bye-laws, providing clarifications etc. The heads of these three unions were leaders of the Telugu Desam party. Thus got involved with local level politicians and some amount of local politicking too! After that, CDF also started showing interest in promoting women dairy cooperatives under MACS legislation in Karimnagar district to start with. I was involved in the initial potential survey to some extent. After 1999, again now in 2012-13, I got an opportunity to take part in the National Dairy Plan through DRS. This involves local field survey in rural areas especially with dairy farmers to understand their production patterns, constraints, whether enabling environment exists for cattle rearing, grazing, fodder, animal health and husbandry, breeding, milk procurement and collection etc. It is almost a kind of full circle. I dont know whether it is due to my childhood familiarity or my formal rural management qualification, dairy continues to touchbase with me whether intended or intended. But finally I cant resist myself from comparing myself with the situation of the lead character in Herman Hesse's work "Siddhartha" where he comes across the persons and places, even after passing of several years.