Govt Approves Meenesh Shah's Appointment as NDDB Chairman for Another 6 Months

The Centre has extended the tenure of Meenesh C Shah, executive director of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), for another six months until November 30. Since December 2020, the position of full-time Chairman of the NDDB has been vacant.

"It is very unfortunate that the government has been unable to find a suitable expert to head NDDB over the last 20 months, and even the approval of extension is coming late, which means asking the person to continue unofficially without an order/notification," a dairy expert said.

Dilip Rath resigned as Chairman of the NDDB after being elected to the Board of the International Dairy Federation (IDF). Initially, the post was held by Varsha Joshi, a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying. Shah has been on the job since June 1, 2021, and the notification published on August 20 is the second extension after the first on January 4, this year.

In addition, India will host the world's largest dairy conference, the IDF World Dairy Summit 2022, in New Delhi from September 12 to 15, with the theme "Dairy for Nutrition and Livelihood."

The NDDB was established in 1965 as the brainchild of then-Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri with the basic goal of replicating the Amul model across the country, and Verghese Kurien served as its Chairman until 1998. Amrita Patel succeeded Kurien and served until 2014.

However, the UPA government chose to appoint former agriculture secretary T Nanda Kumar as Chairman of the NDDB, which many experts see as an encroachment by the IAS on an august institution. Rath, Kumar's successor, was also an IAS and had previously served as the Agriculture Ministry's joint secretary in charge of dairy.

Farmers own the dairy in the Amul model, their elected representatives manage the village societies and the district union, and professionals operate and manage the business while keeping farmers' needs in mind.

"There are several dairy experts with proven credentials to head NDDB, such as BM Vyas, RS Sodhi, and RS Khanna, as well as many dairy farmer leaders capable of holding charge of NDDB," said the earlier quoted expert. A full-time chairman, as the current government envisions for 2047, will create a long-term plan for the dairy sector, giving him the confidence to implement his own ideas, according to the expert.