The Maharashtra Government will soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Group to market the medicines prepared from the forest produce across the county.
State Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar met Ramadev here on Tuesday, in an effort to develop wider market for the medicines produced by way processing the forest produce.
“The forest produce, collected by the tribals, helps them lead a better life. Baba Ramdev has assured us that his firm would source amla, honey, aloe vera, giloh plant, etc. from the Forest Department. The Patanjali group and State forest department will sign an MoU between them, once all the terms and conditions are finalised. Patanjali Group will pay a fixed amount to the Forest Department for the forest produce,” Mungantiwar said.
The Minister said that the Patanjali group had promised a monthly turnover of minimum `20 crore from the sale of forest produce.
“Tribals, who reside in these forests, depend on the forest produce for their livelihood. Under our Shyamprasad Mukherji Janvan Yojana, the State Forest Management committee will provide a wider selling platform to these medicines.
Mungantiwar said that the State Forest department would hold another meeting with Patanjali group at Haridwar shortly.
“Ramdev also extended his support to our ambitious plan of planting 2 crore trees on 3rd July 2016. Baba also assured us to provide 3 lakh volunteers to help in the tree plantation task,” the Minister said. Ramdev said that a Food Park would be developed at Nagpur along the lines of the Patanjali’s Food Park at Haridwar. Mungantiwar presented honey, Bija Glass, Aloe Vera, Shatavari powder etc as gift to Ramdev. Forest Minister also gifted a small replica of a tiger to him.