Role of a dairy federation

This small volume is a collection of papers presented at and the summary of deliberations during the two day Top Management Seminar held on March 7-8, 1983, for chief executives of state level Apex Dairy Federations and Corporations at Anand. While a few of these organisations are new creations, the majority of them were already functioning as dairy development corporations in several states. The role of these corporations is of a different nature from the role assigned to the newly created Federations under Operation Flood II. As many as 17 states have initiated action for implemen ting Operation Flood II and in the process, the existing Corpora tions have been changed into Federations. The impetus for this seminar originated in view of this change, and the conviction at IRMA that large apex bodies in the cooperative sector, if they are to have a strong orientation of development without affecting their commercial role need deliberations and dialogue more often at the level of chief executives. It was also considered appropriate that such a seminar to be fruitful and effective needed participation of the agency with the task of initiating dairy development in the country. Accordingly, representatives of NDDB, at senior levels, were involved from the start, in the designing of the seminar. However, the initiative to organise this seminar was that of IRMA, as it was felt that a forum of chief executives to deliberate on a large development project would be an excellent opportunity for IRMA's faculty, particularly to canalise their research efforts. It was also thought that the faculty members at IRMA would have the oppor tunity to share their experiences and test their conceptual understanding of the project with practitioners at fairly senior levels.

This seminar, the first of its kind, had taken up themes for deliberations, on the most important policy issues viz., National Milk Grid (NMG), National Milch Herd (NMH), Marketing, the role of the federation in dairy development which have long term effects on the entire dairy industry. My colleagues contributed most of the papers in this volume and actively participated in the deliberations. Prof. D. Nagabrahmam coordinated the seminar as well organised the preparation of this printed volume.