AYUSH Ministry signs MoUs to build gardens, conserve medicinal plants

The Ayush Ministry on Monday signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) aimed at conserving the country’s endangered medicinal plants and establishing a national nursery for therapeutic species.

The MoUs were inked at Nirman Bhawan in New Delhi in the presence of Union Ayush Minister Prataprao Jadhav. The National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) partnered with Pune-based IshVed-Bioplants Venture for the conservation project, and with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, to set up the nursery.

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Jadhav congratulated all the institutions, calling the signing ceremony a key milestone in conserving and promoting India’s rich medicinal plant heritage. “By integrating traditional knowledge with modern science, we are making meaningful progress toward realising the vision to build a healthier and self-reliant India by 2047 in line with the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi,” he said.

Through a collaboration of NMPB and IshVed-Bioplants Venture, the agenda is to conserve and maintain the germplasm of rare, endangered, and threatened (RET) medicinal plants through tissue culture methods, an official statement highlighted.

Meanwhile, a national-level medicinal plants garden will be established at AIIMS, New Delhi, under the second MoU. However, the responsibility of raising public awareness about the healing properties of traditional Indian medicinal plants among patients and students visiting the hospital will lie with the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), according to the press statement.

The meeting was attended by Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, Ministry of Ayush; M. Srinivas, Director, AIIMS New Delhi; and Ankita Mishra Bundela, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. Senior officials from the NMPB, AIIA, AIIMS New Delhi, and the Ministry were also present.