Predicting the future
The Indian herbal industry is estimated to have a turnover of Rs 2,300 crore annually. It is also involved in the export of finished products, intermediaries and bulk raw materials. More than 90 per cent of the plant species used by the industry are, however, collected from the wild of which 70 per cent involves unorganised harvesting that is invariably destructive. It is primarily plants in which the roots have medicinal properties that is most affected, says M P Sharma, plant taxonomist, Jamia Ham dard, New Delhi. “Plants which feature in the Union ministry of commerce list and are banned from export such as mamira , kutki , Nardostachys grandiflora (jatamansi) and Podophyllum hexandrum (ban kakri) are scarce,” he says. Suresh Chaturvedi, a vaidya (traditional physician) from Mumbai and recipient of the Padma shree award, and M B Akkalkotkar of the Ayurveda Research Institute, Pune, add to the list some tree species such as Saraca indica (ashoka), Commiphora mukul (guggulu) and Symplococos racemosa (lodhra). One way of assessing the shortage is the ever-increasing prices. For instance, one kilogramme of A heterophyllum or ativisha has gone up from Rs 200 per kg to more than Rs 2,000 per kg in the last 15 years, says P K Warrier, chief physician, Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal, Kerala. This kind of price rise cannot be attributed to increase in demand alone.
“Simply put, all the plants needed for ayurveda are in short supply,” summarises vaidya Nagendra Nath Dixit of Lucknow. “While rich vaidyas can afford to buy herbs at higher prices, the poor ones who are catering to the poor community are unable to do so,” says Balendu Prakash, a practicing ayurvedic physician and director of vcpcrf. The basic philosophy of ayur veda that health care should be available to all is lost.
It is estimated that there are some 600,000 registered practitioners in the country today. Add to that the 95 approved and 45 temporarily approved ayurveda and 31 Unani colleges churning out thousands of new practitioners every year. If the plunder of the forests to fill the coffers of a few is to continue, the plight of the practitioners can well be left to imagination.
All this comes at a time when ism is gaining immense favour in developed countries like the us as an alternative system of medicine. At present, the global turnover in herbal medicines is around us $12 billion, but India’s share is negligible. “The shortage is going to affect the growth of India’s herbal product industry, which hopes to go from a Rs 460 crore export business to a Rs 3,000 crore trade by 2005,” says Rajendra Gupta, former all-India coordinator, medicinal and aromatic plants research, Indian Agri cultural Research Institute, Delhi. Effects of the shortage
According to N Singh, director, Inter national Institute of Herbal Medicines, Lucknow, who is also engaged in cultivation of some plants like brahmi (Bacopa monnieri) and ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), the raw material available in the market is “manure”. The shortage has induced collectors to use adulterants. Moreover, in many cases the collectors
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