Cabinet okays setting up of National Institute for Sowa-Rigpa in Leh

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved setting up of the National Institute for Sowa-Rigpa in Leh as an autonomous organization.

Sowa-Rigpa is a traditional Tibetan system of medicine practised in the Himalayan belt of India. It is popular in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal's Darjeeling, Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh.

This is perhaps one of the first decisions taken by the Union Cabinet on Ladakh's development after it became a Union Territory on October 31 following the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the establishment of the NISR as autonomous body under the Ministry of AYUSH at an estimated cost of Rs 47.25 crore.

It also approved creation of the post of director in Level-14 to oversee implementation of the project from the construction stage itself.

Setting up of NISR would provide an impetus to the revival of Sowa-Rigpa in the Indian sub-continent and provide opportunities for students of the traditional medicinal system, not only in India but also from other countries.

It will be an autonomous national institute under the Ministry of AYUSH with the mandate of undertaking interdisciplinary education and research programmes in Sowa-Rigpa in collaboration with premier national and international institutes and facilitate integration of different systems of medicine, an official statement said.

After setting up of NISR, the synergy among the existing Sowa Rigpa Institutions - Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath, Varanasi and Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, Leh, Union Territory of Ladakh, which are under the administrative control of Ministry of Culture and NISR, will be established, it said.

"This will facilitate quality education, scientific validation, quality control and standardization and safety evaluation of Sowa-Rigpa products, standardized Sowa-Rigpa based tertiary health delivery and to promote interdisciplinary research and education of Sowa-Rigpa at undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral levels," the statement said.

The National Institute of Sowa Rigpa would identify the best Sowa-Rigpa treatment -- including their standard procedures -- within the framework of traditional Sowa-Rigpa principle and possible co-relation with bio-molecular western medicine in providing health care facilities to the general public, it added.