As per the report, nearly 80,000 village level dairy co-operatives in the country achieved a new record of 4.92 million tonne of milk procurement and marketing in 1998-99, a 7 per cent increase over the previous year.

As enumerated by NDDB chairperson Amrita Patel in the agenda for future, the average yield of the milch herd must also be increased through better feeds, immunisation, preventive heath care, genetic improvement and better management--making the Operation Flood synonymous with the highest standards achievable.

In the face of stiff competition from multinationals and the private sector, NDDB proposed to strengthen the institutional framework from the villages upward to let the dairy co-ops assume direct responsibility for improving the productivity, quality and socio-economic-educational condition of its members.

It is in the same context, NDDB proposed to build a national information network to enable the application of modern technology to enhance the capability of dairy co-ops by ensuring rapid availability of accurate information needed for policy formulation, management and research.

The success of Operation Flood and the NDDB's joint ventures in Sri Lanka and other countries has prompted requests from more countries for technical support to develop dairy industry particularly in Asia and Africa.

It was at NDDB's request that Government of India has notified the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of its intention to re-negotiate the bound tariff for milk powder during the next round of discussions. The advanced milk producing countries of America, Europe and Oceania would try to flood the domestic market with their surplus production.While India's total milk production had already surpassed that of the USA last year, the report says, the country's milk production is increasing far more rapidly at 4 per cent per year as against the world average of 1 per cent. As India's population is growing by 2 per cent per year, this augured well in terms of more per capita milk being available now.