Gandhian principles of management and growth of dairy cooperative societies in Karnataka – An analysis

Dairy farming in India in the recent decades, has witnessed a considerable transformation owing to many factors more importantly, cross breeding programme, improved feeding strategies, organised marketing facilities and better veterinary health care services. These factors coupled with favourable government sponsored programmes like Operation Flood programme have led to a quantum jump in milk production from sheer 16 million tonnes in 60s to over 84.1 million tonnes in 2010–11. It is increasingly felt that the importance of dairying in India as a supplier of nutritious complete food for all groups of people, particularly vegetarians.

In Indian Cooperative Movement the milk co-operatives constitute an important part. The milk co-operatives are of the recent origin. They have played a significant role in modernizing dairy business and supplementing the incomes of farmers by providing assured and competitive market for milk. Dairying is an activity that can be generated income and provide gainful employment to both rural and urban unemployed youth. Co-operation means living, thinking and working together. In its technical sense it implies a special method of doing business. The practice of the principle of co-operation contributed to the development of human race more than any other biological and social factor. Right from the hunting stage upto the present day, the social, economic, religious and political development of human beings is marked by a sense of thinking, working and living together. An Attempt is made in this paper to analyse the relevance of Gandhian Principles of Management and the growth of dairy cooperative societies in the state of Karnataka.