A homegrown idea of two masterminds Verghese Kurien & Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel in 1946 that today has turned into a billion-dollar company and with a family of 752 members in marketing arm and 3.6 million members in the milk-producing arm, became an irresistible part of our daily lives “Amul” – The Taste of India. With 23 million litres milk produced per day from 18700 villages, it has a market share between 65-80% in various products and is estimated to grow at 20% in 2019-20 with the current turnover of 33,150 cr in 2018-19.
Amul has spurred the White Revolution that made India the largest producer of milk and milk products in the world. Its ad campaign designed by Sylvester da Cunha, earned Guinness World Record for its longest-running ad campaign in the World.
By delivering quality products from time to time Amul clearly paved the way and showed us the path kaise “Aagey Bhadta hai India” and kaise “Healthy rahega India”. It not just connected every culture every segment in India but also bonded us strongly as one nation through its varied products for each segment like Amul Milk, Cheese, Ghee, Ice cream and my favourite Dark Chocolate. I cannot resist myself from drinking Amul Kool Café and as it gives me an energetic feel and makes up my day.
Amul has well-established coordination with three bodies to carry forward its operation Dairy Cooperative Society at village-level, it is federated under milk union at district-level & federation of member unions at state-level.
- GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) – Marketing and customer body.
- The Unions – That is a milk processing body.
- The Village Societies – Represents the farmers wherein the farmers are given authority at various levels in decision making and organisations sees that fair share of returns is ensured).
In early days, since there was no technology to obtain milk powder from buffalo milk, engineers at Amul made it possible and therefore available to the World. Amul not just gave us quality product but also has contributed a lot through its CSR initiatives in different areas for nation building and binding.
- Sanitation: A novel rural sanitation scheme wherein no Amul’s milk producer/dairy farmers will go for nature’s call in open (no open defecation).
- Education: Scholarship schemes for outstanding children of farmer’s along with Vidya Shree award for 10th class & Vidya Bhushan for 12th class awards.
- Technological Improvement: Dairy Demonstration farm (DDF) at Mogar demonstrates scientific methods of dairy farming.
- Environmental Protection: GCMMF planted around 312 lakhs tree sapling, as they very well iterated that when a tree is cut there is a loss of 33 lakhs.
- Noble Cause: Various blood donations camps are organised regularly through Village Dairy Co-operative societies.
Currently, Amul is also planning to work on ways to reduce and even reuse the plastic milk pouches.
The best moments my life that Amul has given me were those moments when Amul came up with its ad song campaign with the song – “Mero gaam kathyawaad, Jaa dudh ki nadiyaa baahe”. Whenever I listen to this song it arouses a nostalgic feeling and I miss those moments when I used to dance with my mom on these lyrics.
I and every other Indian is proud to have such a home-grown company that caters to our daily nutrition needs and does its best to keep us healthy and binds the nation under one Amul – “Swaad India ka”.