• By Deeksha Sharma
  • Thu, 26 Nov 2020 07:25 AM (IST)
  • Source:JND
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New Delhi| Jagran Lifestyle Desk: The National Milk Day is celebrated every year on November 26 in India. Our country is the largest producer of milk and this day is observed to highlight the significance of milk in everyone's life. This day is basically observed to honour Dr Verghese Kurien, who is known as the father India's White Revolution.

Now, India has become the largest producer of milk but the situation was quite different in the mid 20th century. However, this changed after Verghese Kurien started working on the white revolution of India.

On this day we bring you the 7 unknown facts about Verghese Kurien, the Milkman of India:

1. Verghese was born in Kozhikode in a Syrian-Christian family on November 26, 1921.

2. Kurien was a bright student and he graduated in Science from Loyola College in 1940 and obtained an Engineering degree from Guindy College of Engineering in Chennai. After this, he studied about Dairy Engineering, and to the unknown, he wasn't happy about it.

3. Kurien wanted to join the army as an engineer but god had different plans for him.

4. Kurien was posted at Anand, the milk capital of India and he started living in Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited, run by Tribhuvandas Patel. As he planned that he would leave Patel asked him to help out the fledgeling operation with technological support and those few months marked the turning point for Kurien, changing his life and that of hundreds of thousands of India’s farmers.

5. After that Patel bought new machinery and increased the capacity of the cooperative from 200 litres of milk in 1948 to 20,000 litres in 1952, and the Anand model of cooperative started growing.

6. Amul word was not named by Verghese but was suggested by in 1957 by a chemist at the laboratory. It comes from a Sanskrit word “Amoolya” which means priceless. It is also the acronym for Anand Milk Union Limited.

7. Verghese has won several awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Wateler Peace Prize, World Food Prize, Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.