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HEALTH FILE
New Delhi, 4 October 2008
National Mission on Herbs
BOOST TO AYURVEDIC HEALING
By Radhakrishna Rao
The interest in the potential of ayurveda, including its
knowledge of diet, lifestyle and herbs is growing worldwide. This is clearly so
as ayurveda does not consider the absence of disease as a state of health, but
considers health as a holistic well-being of the physical, emotional and mental
faculties of an individual in all its manifestations.
The growing popularity of ayurvedic healing system is
increasingly being attributed to the fact that it does not give rise to
undesirable side effects, normally associated with the allopathic medicare
system. Ayurveda goes into the very roots of the malaise, as against the
allopathic system, which treats the symptoms of the disease.
Given this growing popularity of ayurveda, an ambitious
National Mission on Medicinal Plants (NMMP) unveiled by the Government seeks to
give a big boost to the cultivation, processing and marketing of medicinal
plants and herbs, the demand for which has been on an upward swing in recent
years. In fact, States that are keen to benefit from this multi-faceted mission
need to come out with specific details of the developmental plans and programmes
for the cultivation of medicinal plants and herbs.
Accordingly, the key objective of the mission is to identify
clusters of medicinal plants throughout the country for producing raw materials
of quality for use by the traditional Ayush production sector. There is a need
for a continuous and synergistic farmer-industry interaction for the success of
the mission.
The strategy would involve adoption of an end-to-end
approach covering production, post harvest management, processing and
marketing. However, it has an uphill task given the disappearance of many
valuable medicinal plants and herbal species from the wild, due to the massive
on-going ecological degradation. Sadly, this ancient Indian health care system
of ayurveda, which forms a part of Vedic literature, is now finding it
difficult to gather standard and quality raw materials vital for the
preparation of various formulations, drugs, pills and potions.
In addition to the rampant and widespread smuggling of
medicinal plants and herbs from the unprotected forest stretches of the
country, there is also the real problem of pilferage of ayurvedic products and
services. A London-based vaid (ayurvedic physician) has expressed his concern
over the large-scale theft of intellectual property rights pertaining to
ayurveda, which in Sanskrit means “Science of Longevity”. He also points out
that many West European doctors who have specialized in high tech, allopathic
medicine are now showing a keen interest in the potentials of ayurveda
including its knowledge of diet, lifestyle and herbs.
In the island nation of Japan too, there is a spurt in
interest in the ayurvedic healing system. Japanese medical researchers are keen
on finding a cure for non-insulin dependent diabetes milletus and insulin
dependent milletus through well proven ayurvedic techniques. In today’s era of
technology boom and internet, the effect of bitter gourd on diabetes is being
discussed as a drug, other than a food.
In the “high tech city “of Bangalore, known for its thriving
IT and software services industry, overworked and stressed techies are now
taking to ayurvedic therapies in a big way to de-stress. “Over 90 per cent of
our clients in the past one year have been IT professionals and over 70 per
cent of them are from Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley.
Most of them come with stress and exhaustion, while others complain of chronic
problems like back pain,” says Goapalakrishnana, Managing Director of a
well-known ayurvedic centre in southern Kerala.
Meanwhile, in Kerala, hailed as “God’s Own Country,” the
Confederation of Ayurvedic Renaissance (Care-Keralam), a consortium of
ayurvedic products manufacturers and State government bodies engaged in the
promotion of ayurveda in all its manifestations are busy working out a strategy
aimed at achieving a ten-fold growth in the export of ayurvedic drugs and
formulations. Besides, it has set up a Rs.330-million research and development
facility at Koratty in Kerala’s Trissur district for the scientific validation
of the ayurvedic drugs.
Of the Rs.40,000-million herbal products manufactured in the
country, Kerala’s contribution is
limited to around Rs.2000-million and the export revenue occupies less
than Rs.100-million of this. By standardizing the manufacturing procedures,
putting in place a proper quality control mechanism, promoting research and
development and ensuring the availability of raw materials, export of ayurvedic
products can be scaled up by around 10 times over a span of five years.
The main concern, however, is of the absence of quality
parameters with which the products can be gauged by the importing countries.
There is thus, a need to start with developing parameters. Apparently, there
was a growing interest in Ayurveda in the US,
the UK,
the Gulf and even African countries. Lack of documented validation procedures
to asses the quality of the products is a major handicap of the ayurvedic
sector. There is need for a state-of-the-art laboratory to validate the quality
of products.
There are proposals to get herbs from the forest-rich
Chhattisgarh to help increase the export of ayurvedic products from the South.
At the same time efforts are afoot to set up an overseas marketing support base
and offshore marketing offices in various part of the world to promote the
ayurvedic drugs and formulations produced, especially in Kerala.
With a view to cure the growing stress and lifestyle
disorders haunting the urban rich in India, a Chandigarh-based group has
decided to set up a 10-acre ayurvedic village near Panchkula, Haryana. The
rationale for such a facility is that in stark contrast to South India, where
ayurvedic rejuvenation and cure centres are aplenty, the North has very
few.
The village will have a research institute, a training
centre and special cottages for specific treatment. In order to support the
ayurvedic village, the group has already initiated the process of cultivating
herbs and medicinal plants at a 40-acre stretch near Yamunagar. Its success
rate will be a thus be a barometer for similar centres to come up, and help the
mission achieve its goal. ---INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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