OUR PRESIDENTSâDr. R. P. Aneja - Indian Dairy Association

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OCTOBER 2012 The complete picture! Dr. Aneja with his family Dr. S.C. Ray, Mr. H.M. Dalaya, Dr. V.H. Shah, Mr. A.K. Ray Chaudhary, Mr. G.M. Jhala, and Dr. Amrita Patel etc. who all contributed very significantly. However many of the contributions have gone unnoticed. Some, that come to my mind are the contributions made by Mr. N. Rajagopal the then Joint Secretary (Dairy Development,GOI), Mr. G.V.K. Rao the then Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, GOI and Mr. T.N. Seshan who was later the Cabinet Secretary and Chief Election Commissioner of India. Working with the legend Working with Dr. Verghese Kurien for over 24 years was a blessing. He led from the front and was totally committed to the dairy farmers of India showing the thoroughness that was needed to handle the tremendous challenges facing us. He was able to muster support at the highest levels in the country which helped in the successful implementation of Operation Flood. His real strength came from the farmers supported by professionals working for them. This is an unbeatable combination. I was lucky to have a ringside seat and watch events unfold as they did to make the country a leader in milk and milk products. My only regret is that we missed the opportunity of merging NDDB and IDC with NCDFI after the Jha Committee report on Operation Flood. That would have made the dairy cooperatives supreme in handling the affairs of the dairy farmers. Speaking of his immediate family Dr. Aneja says “I was truly blessed to have had a very upright father and a loving mother who supported me unconditionally. My father could not get the education that he wanted and knew the value of higher learning. I was given whatever was needed to pursue my goals. The values of honesty, hard work and faith in the Lord were inculcated in me from my parents. Later on, I was lucky to have married Rama who gave up her career as a Doctor to look after our two daughters, Punita and Urmi. Both our daughters, son-in-laws and grandchildren have been sources of great strength and joy to us.” A Humanitarian to the core Dr Aneja’s philosophy of life can be gleaned from his thoughts reproduced below: “Everyone has purpose on this earth. Some are lucky to have it spelled out for them. Some struggle to find their mission. I was just lucky that my path was clearly spelled out and at every turning point there were clear signals. I came to India from Canada to get married and found a wonderful life partner. Subsequently I ran into Michael Halse who prompted me to join the NDDB. This made me stay back at Anand for the next 24 years and I enjoyed very moment of a very satisfying professional life. All the values that were inculcated over my earlier years came in handy. It is the process that is important and the end result will ultimately be good. India has always produced generations of people seeped in our timeless values of honesty, sense of purpose, hard work and compassion. The guiding principle has always been Love All Serve All. The damage done to the rich by the poverty in India is far greater than the misery it causes to the poor. The rich are refusing to see the reality and are living in virtual bubbles. When the bubbles burst, the reality will dawn on them in the most horrific manner. INDIAN DAIRYMAN 27
Our Presidents Dr. Aneja continues to pursue his lifelong mission of development of industrial processes for the manufacture of traditional Indian dairy products so that they find their rightful place in the global market. 28 I was lucky to have seen poverty in the raw. An incident comes to my mind when we lived in a small village, Navli (near Jaipur, Rajasthan) where my wife was posted as a Medical Officer at the Primary Health Centre. One day our neighbor's wife did not turn up to pick up our one year old daughter whom they loved and took care of while both of us went to work. So I went to their house and it was quite clear from the long drawn faces of everyone in the family that someone had died in the family. I then asked one of the older sons as to what had happened? I was told that the buffalo died. For me it was just a question of an economic loss but for the family it seemed to be a calamity. The good lady then explained to me that her husband who usually squanders away the money out of the annual crop would not provide the money to buy another buffalo to keep her and the entire family totally under his control. Money earned from milk was hers to keep and that took care of the day-to-day expenses giving her the independence to look after the kids and their education. That opened my eyes to the importance of the work we were doing. It was quite clear that Dr. Kurien had motivated a lot of professionals to dedicate their lives to this noble cause of helping the rural poor who got as much of half of their incomes from milk. That made us all at NDDB, missionaries. Fortunately for me the Market Intervention Operation in Oils (MIO) was a God sent opportunity to serve the country. My last two years in the NDDB were known for the success that we achieved in making the country self-sufficient in oilseeds and edible oils through the Technology Mission on Oilseeds and the Market Intervention Operation that I was handling. Thanks to the tremendous support we received from Dr. P.V. Shenoy who was the Mission Director and his successor Mr. M. Moses along with Mr. K.R. Rao who was deputed to the Technology Mission from NDDB. Mr. G.K. Sood of the Vanaspati Manufacturers Association of India was particularly helpful with his knowledge of the oilseed sector. India achieved selfsufficiency in oilseeds within three years — a feat that needed a lot of planning and full support from everyone in the Government. I wish we could do the same in the energy sector. Dr. Kurien could have done that. Since NDDB salaries at that time were aligned to the government salaries and working at Anand was more a labor of love, I needed to earn for my retirement. Well-paying assignments came my way as result of what we had achieved at Anand. The Lord looked after us and now in retirement, I am able to contribute to the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning at Puttaparthy in Andhra Pradesh by telling stories of what you can achieve if you have faith and confidence and His grace.” Unrelenting zeal: The mission continues On his return to India from Canada in November 2003 Dr. and Mrs. Aneja went for a pilgrimage to Puttaparthy, the abode of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Mr. S.V. Giri , the Vice Chancellor of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning invited the erudite Dr. Aneja as Visiting Faculty at the Department of Economics which was headed by Prof. V.N. Pandit (a well-known economist from Delhi School of Economics). Dr. Aneja continues to pursue his lifelong mission of development of industrial processes for the manufacture of traditional Indian dairy products so that they find their rightful place in the global market. Currently a visiting faculty member in the Dept. of Economics at the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, he offers a course in Natural Resource and Energy Economics. It has rightly been said, "Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service and character." Dr. Aneja, untiring in spirit and mind and unmatched in ability and enterprise, truly embodies this saying. With his wealth of experience and expertise, the multifaceted genius continues to lead from the front. IDA and the entire dairy sector is privileged to have amongst its midst a dairyman par excellence! INDIAN DAIRYMAN OCTOBER 2012
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OUR PRESIDENTSâDr. R. P. Aneja - Indian Dairy Association

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OUR PRESIDENTSâDr. R. P. Aneja - Indian Dairy Association