India became world's largest milk producer in 1998: Congress attacks PM over dairy summit remarks

The Congress slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday over his remarks at the world dairy summit, saying the "white revolution" was entirely because of Tribhuvandas Patel, V Kurien and the great cooperative institutions they created.

Speaking after inaugurating the International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit (IDF WDS) 2022 on Monday, Modi had said since 2014, "our government has worked relentlessly to enhance the potential of India's dairy sector".

"Today, its result is visible in terms of milk production as well as the increased income of farmers. In 2014, India produced 146 million tonnes of milk. Now, it has increased to 210 million tonnes. That is, an increase of about 44 per cent," the prime minister had said.

"Jagadguru of Jhoot is now claiming to have made India the world's largest milk producer, which it became in 1998," Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet, in an apparent reference to Modi's remarks at the summit.

"The White Revolution was entirely because of Tribhuvandas Patel, Dr. V. Kurien and the great cooperative institutions they created," the former Union minister added.

In his remarks at the summit, Modi had said milk production is growing at the rate of 2 per cent in the world, whereas in India, its growth rate is more than 6 per cent.

"The per capita availability of milk in India is much higher than the world average. In the last three-four years, our government has directly transferred about Rs 2 lakh crore to the bank accounts of small farmers," he had said.

A large part of this amount was credited to the bank accounts of the farmers associated with the dairy sector, he had said.

Due to the hard work of small farmers and their livestock, India is currently the largest milk producing country in the world, the prime minister had said.