Kurien faces siege from within at Anand institute

The father of India's milk revolution, Dr Verghese Kurien, is battling a determined effort to remove him from the chairmanship of the prestigious Institute of Rural Management, Anand.

Kurien founded and nurtured the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA).

"It is a conspiracy by outsiders against me and the institute," said Kurien. "Public institutions are not permanent parking places," said his rivals.

Not new to conspiracy, the man who at the helm of a determined team managed to fend off repeated onslaughts by both bureaucrats and politicians on his dairying domain as he took the country to the coveted slot of the biggest milk producer in the world, Kurien this time is facing a siege from within.

Ranged against him is his one time protégé, Dr Amrita Patel, chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). Patel replaced Kurien as NDDB head six years ago. Both have been at loggerheads for some time now. The dice for the moment seems loaded against Kurien as he battles IRMA Director K. Prathap Reddy, both in the courts and the campus. Reddy has the backing of Patel and the Gujarat and federal governments. Reddy has been fired by Kurien.

The issues at stake have travelled from the board room to the court room right up to the High Court and the chances of it making it to the Supreme court thereafter cannot be ruled out either.

Lost in the din is the fact that a national institution of international standing is being dragged through the muck in a no holds barred battle raging at the higher echelons of the power structure.

The present round of trouble began when a board member reportedly owing allegiance to Patel questioned Kurien's lifetime chairmanship of IRMA after he had been in the saddle for 17 years.

This resulted in the Memorandum of Association of IRMA being sent to the Assistant Charity Commissioner (ACC) for ratification last year. The ACC ratified the entire memorandum except Kurien's lifetime chairmanship observing that it was not in the interest of any institution. An appeal against the ACC's order was filed with the office of the joint charity commissioner, Baroda who after conducting hearings upheld the order rejecting the provisions that allow Kurien chairmanship for life.

The appeal was filed by B.M. Vyas, MD of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCCMF) and a member of the IRMA board and three others.

Vyas appealed the decision in the local court which stayed a board meeting slated for April 1.

Unmindful, members of the IRMA board opposed to Kurien, including its director Prathap Reddy went ahead with the meeting and appointed a committee to look for a replacement for Kurien.

Kurien joined battle and in a move designed to take the fight into the opposite camp fired Reddy and ordered his office sealed on April 7.