Eleventh Five Year Plan

Health and Family Welfare and AYUSH 111SystemTABLE 3.2.3System-wise Details of Manufacturing UnitsManufacturing UnitsNumbersProportionAyurveda 7621 85.68Unani 321 3.61Siddha 325 3.65Homeopathy 628 7.06Total 8895 100.00Source: Department of AYUSH, status as on 1 April 2007.investments in upgrading processing technology, R&Dincluding collaborative research with reputed internationalinstitutions and quality control. It will also callfor intersectoral cooperation among AYUSH, CSIR,ICMR, private sector R&D, NGOs, and Ministry ofCommerce for meeting global requirements of qualityand safe natural medicinal products. Technicaland financial support to the industry in this directioncould go a long way in improving our exports.Standardization and Quality Control ofAyurveda, Siddha, Unani, and Homeopathy(ASU&H) Drugs3.2.11 Four different Pharmacopoeia Committeesare working for preparing official formularies/pharmacopoeias to evolve uniform standards in preparationof drugs of ASU&H and to prescribe workingstandards for single drugs as well as compoundformulations. Standards for around 40% of the rawmaterials and around 15% of formulations havebeen published by these committees. Drug ControlCell (AYUSH) is working in the Department ofAYUSH to deal with the matters pertaining to licensingand regulation of Ayurvedic, Unani, and SiddhaDrugs. Setting up of the Central Drug Authority forcentralized licensing and enforcement of the provisionsof Drugs and Cosmetics Act and Rules would go a longway in ensuring quality and safety of ASU&H drugs.Department of AYUSH intends to convert PharmacopoeialCommittees of various systems into a modernpharmacopoeial commission with adequate representationof stakeholders and to develop standards thatare in line with internationally acceptable pharmacopoeialstandards and quality parameters of Ayurveda,Siddha, and Unani drugs.Research Activities3.2.12 The Central Government has establishedresearch councils for Ayurveda and Siddha (CentralCouncil for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha, CCRAS),Unani (Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine),Homeopathy Central Council for Research inHomeopathy, and Yoga and Naturopathy (CentralCouncil of Yoga and Naturopathy). These Councilshave carried out a wide range of research activities.Other government departments like ICMR, CSIR,DST, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), and ICARalso have research centres and focused programmesrelated to specific aspects of AYUSH. Department ofAYUSH also administers an Extramural ResearchScheme supporting project based research studiesfrom accredited scientific and medical institutions.3.2.13 One of the socially important outputs ofresearch in the AYUSH sector has been the pharmacopeiasand formularies of the various systems ofmedicine. Whereas numerous important researchprojects have been undertaken in the last three decadesacross the various research councils on important publichealth problems like malaria, filariasis, hepatitis,anaemia, there is no critical report on the quality orimpact of these projects on the health sector in India.The current research investments are extremely low.One challenge is to step up research investments andsupport reputed research organizations in the government,non-government, and private sector and promotecollaborative research with reputed internationalinstitutions. The challenge of addressing strategic researchneeds in disease areas of national and globalimportance is attempted to be met through GoldenTriangle Research Programme from development ofASU&H drugs.Natural Resource Base of AYUSH3.2.14 The resource base of AYUSH is largely plants.Around 6000 species of medicinal plants are documentedin published medical and ethno-botanicalliterature. Wild populations of several hundreds ofthese species are under threat in their natural habitats.In the Tenth Plan, a National Medicinal Plants Board(NMPB) was established for supporting conservationof gene pools and large scale cultivation of medicinalplants. The NMPB has also promoted the creation of