Sustainable development of medicinal plants in North East

Our Correspondent
IMPHAL, February 13

Manipur Forest department is all set to organize two day National workshop on ‘Sustainable development of medicinal plants sector in North Eastern India’ from February 16 to 17 at the jubilee hall of the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences at Lamphelpat in Imphal.This was announced by the Principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) Bala Prasad during a press conference at the state forest office at Sanjenthong in Imphal this afternoon. The workshop will be supported by the National medicinal plants board,Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India.The main objective of organizing the workshop is to promote marketing of the medicinal plant raw materials and products from the North Eastern region, says the PCCF Bala Prasad. Besides we are also aiming to support processing and value addition of medicinal plant products for pharmaceutical and non-medicinal uses and also to develop medicinal plant sector for rural employment and livelihood of the rural population.For this representatives of the popular companies such as Dabur, Himami and local entrepreneurs have also confirmed for their participation the ensuing workshop to promote sustainable cultivation, collection, value addition and marketing of medicinal plants, the PCCF added.
Experts from each state medical plants board of eight north eastern states will also made their respective presentation during the workshop.A brain storming session on different working group(themes) which include collection,resources augmentation and cultivation of medicinal plants for sustainable livelihood systems will also be held during the gathering, he added
Participating in the press conference, state’s additional principal chief conservator of forest PN Prasad also admitted that around 300 plants species are grown in Manipur of which around five of them are not available in any parts of the globe. Besides more than 100 medicinal plants are also grown in the state without tapping its economic values etc, he added. But very less people knew about its importance in our life even though 90 percent of such medicinal plants are grown in the forest while only 2 percent under cultivation process, he observed. So the idea of holding the workshop is to streamline the conservation, cultivation and harvest of such rare medical plants in a systematic way in order to address the livelihood issues of the poor population in the state in order to have a sustainable cultivation of the medical plants in future.The Deputy chief conservator of Forest wild life wing L Joykumar also attended the day’s press conference.