National Dairy Development Board (NDDB)
The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was founded in 1965 to replace exploitation with empowerment, tradition with modernity, stagnation with growth, transforming dairying into an instrument for the development of India's rural people.
NDDB began its operations with the mission of making dairying a vehicle to a better future for millions of grassroots milk producers. The mission achieved thrust and direction with the launching of ”Operation Flood", a programme extending over 26 years and which used World Bank loan to finance India's emergence as the world's largest milk producing nation. Operation Flood's third phase was completed in 1996 and has to its credit a number of significant achievements.
As on March 2006, India’s 117,575 village dairy cooperatives federated into 170 milk unions, and 15 federations procured on an average 21.5 million litres of milk every day. 12.4 million farmers are presently members of village dairy cooperatives.
Since its inception, the Dairy Board has planned and spearheaded India's dairy programmes by placing dairy development in the hands of milk producers and the professionals they employ to manage their cooperatives. In addition, NDDB also promotes other commodity-based cooperatives, allied industries and veterinary biologicals on an intensive and nation-wide basis.
In short, NDDB, as a multi-sector and multi-location statutory body, has been involved in planning, implementation, financing and supporting farmer owned, professionally managed agricultural enterprises. It has vast experiences in supporting smallholder organisations and facilitating their access to markets and an excellent capacity in research, training and professional and management service.
