India drinks milk… This city is called the Milk Capital, a story few know, from scarcity to surplus.

Milk Capital of India: India is an agricultural country, where crop residues become fodder for cows, buffaloes, and goats. Therefore, besides farmers, many others also own livestock used in farming. Due to the interconnection of agriculture and animal husbandry, the country produces a huge amount of milk. If you are a milk enthusiast, do you know that there is a city in the country that sparked a revolution, which later earned it the title of the Milk Capital of India. There was a time

There is hardly any country in the world where milk is not produced or consumed. There was a time when India faced a milk shortage, but later something happened that not only boosted the country’s economy but also supported the deteriorating health of people suffering from malnutrition.

A Story from Before Independence

The Milk Capital of India is in Gujarat. The city of Anand in Gujarat is called the milk capital. What is the background of this achievement? Let us tell you the story from before independence that laid the foundation for this tag. The story is about 90 years old. At that time, India was a slave of the British. In the mid-1940s, dairy farmers in the Kheda district of Gujarat were being heavily exploited by big businessmen and middlemen. These people paid the farmers very little for their milk, while they themselves sold the milk to consumers at arbitrarily high prices.

The Father of the White Revolution

Seeing the plight of dairy producers, under the guidance of leaders like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Morarji Desai, farmers and livestock keepers bypassed the middlemen and formed a cooperative society to ensure fair compensation for the hard work and products of dairy farmers. Several such key reasons contributed significantly to making ‘Anand’ not only the Milk Capital but also an important backbone of the country’s dairy industry.

After laying the foundation of the cooperative, a revolution came to the country, known worldwide as the White Revolution. The father of the White Revolution was Dr. Kurien, who transformed the city of Anand into a scientific lab for dairy science and a global market. Under his leadership, India achieved a feat for the first time in the world that left even the British across the seven seas astonished. His team successfully invented milk powder from buffalo milk. Before this, it was a common belief in the dairy industry that powder could only be made from cow’s milk.

Within two decades, in 1970, the National Dairy Development Board launched ‘Operation Flood’, which became the world’s largest dairy development program. It connected rural producers to urban consumers through a nationwide milk network. By implementing modern technology and veterinary services, this program effectively increased the country’s milk supply, ending India’s dependence on imports and making the country self-reliant.

Millions of Liters of Milk Production Per Day

A plant located in Anand alone produces and processes approximately 3 to 3.5 million liters of milk per day. Speaking of the entire district, crores of liters of milk are collected daily from the cooperative societies of Gujarat. Tanker after tanker of milk products bring glory to India worldwide, and thus, in Anand, Gujarat, there was such a ‘Anand Mangal’ (blissful prosperity) that it later earned the status of India’s Milk Capital.