With an aim to help enhance income of farmers and realise the dream of Green India, the Government on Thursday launched a national campaign to cover around 75,000 hectares of land in the next one year across the country with medicinal plants which have huge demand in the domestic and global herbal market.
In this regard, the National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) under the Union Ministry of Ayush kicked off a programme from Saharanpur in UP and Pune in Maharashtra. This program is second in the series of programs being organized by the Ministry under the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’.
In Pune medicinal plants were distributed to the farmers while those who were already cultivating medicinal plants were felicitated. Nilesh Lanke, MLA from Partner in Ahmednagar district, Dr. Asim Ali Khan, DG, Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine (CCRUM), and Dr. Chandra Shekhar Sanwal, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, NMPB, led the events from different locations.
Dr. Sanwal said that “this effort will give more impetus to the supply of medicinal plants in the country”. A total of 7500 medicinal plants were distributed to 75 farmers on this occasion. A target has been set to distribute 75 thousand saplings.
Similarly, in Saharanpur, Minister of State for Ayush, Uttar Pradesh, Dharam Singh Saini along with Research Officer of National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB), Sunil Dutt, and officials of Ministry of Ayush also participated. The farmers cultivating medicinal plants were felicitated by Saini. Medicinal plants were distributed free of cost to 150 farmers who came from many nearby districts. These included mainly 5 species of plants - Night-flowering Jasmine (Parijat), Golden Apple (Bel), Margosa Tree (Neem), Indian Ginseng (Ashwagandha) and Indian Blackberry (Jamun). 750 Jamun saplings were separately distributed free of cost to the farmers.