Right raw material must for quality alternative medicines: Shripad Naik

Availability of quality raw materials must be the priority for ensuring high standards of alternative medicines such as ayurveda, unani, siddha and homeopathy (AYUSH), said Shripad Naik, minister of state for AYUSH and Health and Family Welfare, while addressing the state/UTs AYUSH/health ministers conference on February 20, 2015 in New Delhi. He added, “Review meetings should be held from time to time with all stakeholders to understand the bottlenecks they face in taking up large cultivation of medical plants. The issues impacting medicinal plants cut across many sectors, and therefore, inter-sectoral coordination must be taken up in right earnest. The State Medicinal Plants Boards (SMPBs) could be the nodal agencies for this.”
 
The government has established the National AYUSH Mission (NAM), which envisages better access to AYUSH services through increase in number of hospitals and dispensaries ensuring availability of alternative medicines and trained manpower. Shripad Naik added that 20% of total available resources are earmarked for flexible components to enable the state governments to focus on need based activities to promote and develop AYUSH systems in the states/UTs.
 
Emphasising that institutional strengthening has been envisaged as one of the core activities under the NAM, Naik said, “The enhancement in the number of upgraded educational institutions, increase in the number of pharmacies, drug testing laboratories and improved drug enforcement mechanism in terms of making available quality standards paraphernalia will ensure the availability of qualified practitioners and safe drugs to the society. For this purpose, the state governments are also expected to establish the AYUSH administrative infrastructure at state, district and block levels.”
 
Laying emphasis on the education regulations for ayurveda, unani, siddha and homeopathy, the minister said the states should give top priority to fulfil the mandatory requirements of infrastructure, facilities and functionality of concerned ayurveda, siddha, unani and homoeopathy colleges and hospitals as per provisions under the relevant act and regulations.