Acclaimed as the Father of the White Revolution, Dr. Verghese Kurien transformed the dairy farming sector by bringing to it professional management.
As a young engineer in the small town of Anand, he took on the challenge of professionally organizing and managing the Kaira Cooperative in 1950. He created a robust supply chain, incorporated modern technology & production systems, introduced professional marketing and built an ecosystem of organizations with a strategic vision of sustainable growth. This legendary success story of Amul was then replicated across India to actualize his ‘Billion Litre Idea’. From a trickle to a mighty flood, Amul’s cooperative movement created livelihood for more than 15 million farmers pan India.
Dr. Kurien recognized that professional management had brought about this visible socio-economic impact to an underserved segment. This thought inspired him to establish the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) in the year 1979 with an aim to create a new generation of professional managers who would bring in modern management to serve the underserved economy.
“My reasoning was even if only a handful of students each year from such an institute (IRMA) could grow, evolve, stride out into the world and, perhaps build some more Amuls, what a boon it would be for our rural people and for the nation.”
- From Dr. Verghese Kurien’s autobiography “I Too Had a Dream”
