Amul chief receives Asia Pacific Productivity Champion award

ANAND, 12 June 2021: Dr. R S Sodhi, Managing Director, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited (Amul) has been awarded with the prestigious Asian Productivity Organization (APO), Tokyo, Japan regional award.  

It is pertinent to note that Dr Sodhi is the first person in the last 20 years from India to receive the award. Government of India's National Productivity Council (NPC) under the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry has unanimously recommended Dr Sodhi's name for APO award from India.

NPC provides training, consultancy and undertakes research in a plethora of areas. NPC also implements the productivity promotion plans and programmes of the Tokyo based Asian Productivity Organization (APO), an inter-governmental body of which the Government of India is a founder member.

The APO invites nominations from NPOs of member countries. The APO regional awards are conferred every five years and each country can nominate only one candidate out of the all nominations. Every five years only five regional awarded gets award.

The award was conferred to those individuals who have contributed significantly to advancing the productivity movement in the Asia-Pacific region are eligible for the Regional Awards, and those in a specific member economy of the APO are eligible for the National Awards.

On this occasion, Dr Sodhi has accepted the award from on behalf of 3.6 million milk producers of Gujarat.

Dr Sodhi is the first-batch alumnus from Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). He joined Amul in the year 1982 directly after completing his post-graduation in rural management from IRMA and rose to the present level of Managing Director since June 2010.

While accepting the award, he conveyed his sincere thanks to Shri Arun Kumar Jha, IES, Director General, National Productivity Council, DPIIT, GoI for nominating "Milk Man" for the award.

It is interesting to note that over the last 11 years, under Dr. Sodhi's leadership milk  procurement of member unions has increased by 2.7 times (From average 91 lakhs Kg Per Day in the year 2009-10 to 246 Lakhs Kg Per Day in the year 2020-21) and such creditable growth in milk procurement was a result of the high milk procurement price of around 2.5 times (INR 337 per Kg Fat in the year 2009-10 to INR 810 Per Kg Fat in the year 2020-21) paid in this period to milk producer members.

The highly remunerative price paid over the years, helped to retain farmers' interest in milk production; and better returns from dairying have motivated them to enhance their investments in increasing milk production.

GCMMF and its member unions has implemented various Total Quality Management (TQM) programmes since last 22 years not only for marketing, sales and production team but also for milk producer members of Gujarat. TQM initiative at all level along with promotion of the concept of commercial, scientific, cooperative dairy farming ensure that also helps retain the next generation of dairy farmers in the business.

GCMMF is the largest food product organization of India and achieved group sales turnover of INR 53,000 crores (USD 7.3 billion) during last financial year and aimed to achieved INR 100,000 crores (USD 14 billion) in next five year.

Every year, GCMMF achieved milestone because it's member unions ensure that around 75 percent – 85 percent of consumer rupee goes back to milk producer members by constantly maintaining supply chain efficiency.