Hunt on for new head of NDDB

The government has started the hunt for a new head of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) after the incumbent chairperson Amrita Patel's term expires in November this year.

Patel, 70, completes her third stint at the helm of the apex body for the country's milk dairies, and is unlikely to be asked to continue considering her age and her expressed desire to remit office.

Patel, who followed her mentor Verghese Kurien, the 'Milk Man of India', as chairperson of NDDB in 1998 at the age of 55, will complete a 15-year stint as head of NDDB in November this year.

Potential contenders for NDDB's top slot include NDDB managing director Dilip Rath, NDDB services managing director Deepak Tikku, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation chairman Vipul Chaudhary and GCMMF's former managing director B M Vyas.

The government, meanwhile, is in the process of forming a search committee under cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth to short-list names for the post.

The committee members also include secretary to the department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries Anup Kumar Thakur and agriculture secretary Ashish Bahuguna.

The department of personnel and training is expected to issue an order on the formation of the search committee, official sources said.

NDDB, set up by an Act of Parliament in 1965, mainly to replicate the success of the Kaira Co-operative Milk Producers' Union (Amul) in other parts of the country, is currently implementing the National Dairy Plan in 14 states.

Milk demand in the country projected to rise by an annual 7 per cent and touch 200 million tonnes by 2020, up from 133 million tonnes in 2012-13.

The World Bank-funded dairy plan seeks to augment milk production in the country by improving productivity of milch animals and providing rural milk producers greater access to the organised milk processing sector.