i. Operation Flood, launched in 1970, was a project of India's national dairy development board, which was the world's biggest dairy development programme. It is a system whereby all the farmers can pool their milk produced according to different grading (based on quality) and the same is processed and marketed to urban centres through cooperatives.
In this system, farmers are assured of fair price and income from the supply of the milk to urban markets. Gujarat state holds a success story of the efficient implementation of milk cooperatives, which has been followed by many states.
ii. It has been considered necessary to replace the private moneylenders by institutional sources of credit because:
i. The supply of credit was irregular and depended largely on personal relations between the borrower and the lender.
ii. Since the borrower was generally illiterate, the moneylender often resorted to downright cheating such as failure to record the repayments in full.
iii. The moneylenders often took advantage of the ignorance and helplessness of the cultivator to exploit him.
iv. The landless tenants and farm workers, who had no land to offer as security, found it difficult to borrow. The loans were available on very difficult terms, and the borrowers were often burdened with permanent debt.