White Revolution was the name of the project entrusted to Dr Verghese Kurien to make India self-sufficient in milk production. The project literally helped create a flood of milk thanks to his unique dairy cooperative movement, which saw India surpassing the US in milk production in 1998 to emerge as the world's largest milk producer with an anuual growth of 5 to 6 per cent as against the global average of 1 per cent.

In 2004 India accounted for 15 per cent of the world's total milk production. Today, 173 milk producers' cooperative unions and 22 federations play a major role in meeting the demand for packed milk and milk products.

Quality milk, pasteurised, packaged, and branded, is now available in more than 1,000 cities throughout India, in a national milk grid to reach over 300 million consumers in 550 cities and towns. Over nine million small producers in 74,000 villages jointly earn an incremental income of Rs2,500 crore from milk.

Over the course of Operation Flood, milk has been transformed from a commodity into a brand, from rationing to plentiful availability, from loose, unhygienic milk to milk that is pure and sure, from subjugation to a symbol of farmer's economic independence, to being the consumer's greatest insurance policy for good health.

Compiled by Shubha Khandekar