Measures being taken to preserve ethnic and tribal medicinal practices
CCRAS is a part of the AYUSH ministry; AYUSH is an abbreviated form of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.
The minister said that presently, the programme is being implemented through 16 peripheral institutes / units of CCRAS located in different part of the country.
CCRAS through its peripheral institutes / units (viz. Itanagar - Arunachal Pradesh, Bangalore-Karnataka, Jhansi-Uttar Pradesh and Tari khet – Uttarakhand) is also conducting Medico-ethno Botanical survey at different regions across the country for documenting and publishing the same from time to time.
The data regarding tribal medicine and practices documented so far are under the process of validation.
In addition, the minister informed the House that National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) under its scheme has also supported some R&D projects on ethno-botanical records to Assam, Karnataka, Mizoram, Manipur, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh on medicinal usage of local flora by tribal people.
The NMPB through FRLHT, Bengaluru has developed a database on Indian medicinal plants, which contain information about the habitat and therapeutic uses of more than 7,000 medicinal plants species. This database is in public domain.
In addition, CCRAS, CCRUM and CCRS are also engaged in survey, documentation of medicinal flora of different area of the country and publish the data from time to time.
The minister pointed out that to prevent misappropriation of the country’s traditional medicinal knowledge, Ministry of AYUSH, in collaboration with CSIR, has established a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), for transcription of Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha codified texts into English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.
In addition, the Government of India has established a National Institute “The North Eastern Institute of Folk Medicine (NEIFM) at Pasighat, East Siang District, Arunachal Pradesh to survey, document and validates folk medicine practices, remedies and therapies prevalent in the region to revitalize, promote and harness these local health traditions.
The activities of the institute will also help in protecting the knowledge and resources of folk medicines in the North Eastern Region, the minister said.
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