Verghese Kurien - Telegraph Another problem was that of dealing with seasonal gluts and shortages. Around the world, dairies process surplus winter milk into milk powder and butter oil, recombining much of it back into milk in the summer months. The problem was that, while much of the world used cow's milk, most Indian production was buffalo milk; and Kurien had been told by Western scientists that the milk was not suitable for turning into powder. But he prevailed over the experts to persuade Unicef to finance a dried milk plant. Opened by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956, it was the first plant anywhere in the world to produce milk powder from buffalo milk. In 1965 the Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri appointed Kurien chairman of a newly-formed National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), charged with replicating Amul's success across the country. When he found that the EEC intended to "dump" large quantities of surplus butter and milk powder on India, potentially flooding the market and killing off the indigenous dairy industry, he persuaded the EEC to give the surpluses to the NDDB, so that it could sell them at prevailing prices and use the funds generated for dairy development. In 1970 he launched Operation Flood, a huge development programme with the objective of creating a nationwide milk grid linking 10 million milk producers through 96,000 dairy co-operatives, with consumers in more than 700 towns and cities. Over the next 25 years the programme made India the largest producer of milk and milk products in the world. Milk production increased from 20 million tonnes a year in the 1960s to 122 million tonnes in 2011. Despite his long involvement with the industry, Kurien never drank milk; he could not bear the taste. Verghese Kurien was born in Calicut in what was then the Madras Presidency (now Kozhikode in Kerala) on November 26 1921 into a Syrian Christian family. His father was a surgeon in Cochin, his mother a pianist. After graduating in Physics from Loyola College, Madras (now Chennai), he took a further degree in Engineering at the College of Engineering, Guindy. His correct answer to the question "what is pasteurisation?" subsequently earned him a Government of India scholarship that allowed him to study at Michigan State University; but while he was sent there to study dairy farming and milk production, he ended up doing his Master's in Metallurgical Engineering. On his return to India in 1949 he was posted as a dairy engineer to a government research station at Anand in Gujarat. He hated the job, not least because, as a bachelor, Christian and non-vegetarian, he found it impossible to find lodgings. Instead he lived in a converted garage. However, he had little choice but to stay put, as if he resigned he would have had to repay his scholarship money. After he was eventually released from his bond, he was on the point of moving to a job in Delhi when he was persuaded to join the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers" Union. The success of Amul and Operation Flood led to experts from around the world coming to Anand to learn about grass roots producer co-operatives. Kurien also set up the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, which became a respected authority on rural development. Kurien received numerous honours and awards, including India's Padma Vibhushan, the World Food Prize, the Carnegie-Wateler World Peace Prize and the American International Person of the Year award. But his fiery temperament and habit of blunt speaking did not endear him to everyone. In 2006, after a prolonged and bruising spat, he was effectively ousted from his position as chairman of GCMMF by other board members who wanted to move the organisation in a more commercial direction. Kurien is survived by his wife, Molly, and by their daughter. Verghese Kurien, born November 26 1921, died September 9 2012