Guwahati, March 14 (PTI): The Assam Assembly today passed the bill to set up Assam Yoga Council for regulating teaching and practice of yoga in the state.
‘The Assam Yoga Council Bill, 2018’ was passed by the legislators, paving the way for setting up of a statutory body.
In his written statement on the bill, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said: “It is time Assam establishes a Yoga Council for setting up of a proper mechanism necessary for regulating Yoga and Naturopathy sector.”
The Council is proposed to be set up in order to assure quality of service and to avoid misinterpretation and misuse of the system, besides ensuring Yoga institutions to offer safe, reliable and quality medical healthcare, he added.
Sarma said the Council will be empowered to grant affiliation and accreditation to institutions teaching Yoga as well as withdraw the same.
Other objectives are “to confer registration on the institutionally qualified professional practitioners, to confer registration to other yoga practitioners fulfilling the terms and conditions laid down in the draft bill,” he added.
The minister further said in his statement that the Council will regulate various course curriculum of studies for registration by yoga practitioners and advise the state government as well as academic institutes in the matter of research in the subject.
