Tribal woes
the forest department in Kerala has prevented the Kani tribals to cultivate and sell the wonder plant Arogyapacha . The plant is used in the production of a drug developed by the Tropical Botanic Gardens and Research Institute ( tbgri ).
The department has also blocked the sale of the plant to the Coimbatore Aryavaidya Pharmacy by invoking the provision that tribals can collect only plants which are included in the list of over 120 species under the category of Non-Timber Forest Produce. The department's Vigilance Wing recently seized over 10,000 Arogyapacha plants from the tribals while they were being "smuggled out' from the reserve forest area. As a result, the Coimbatore Aryavaidya Pharmacy, which had entered into a contract with the State Government for the production and marketing of the drug