Foundation of Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) has received assistance to the tune of Rs 30 crore from the Tata Trust. The non governmental organization in the traditional healthcare space will now utilize the funds to set up the Indian Institute of Ayurveda Integrated Medicine(IIAIM). The facility will come up at the location next to the FRLHT campus at Jarakabanda Kaval, Post Attur, Yelahanka in the outskirts of Bangalore.
FRLHT already has 5 hectares of land and the Institute will be accommodated here. The construction will commence in June and the institute will provide the much needed fillip to the herbal science education, informed Darshan Shankar, former director, FRLHT.
The 15-year-old Foundation has been engaged in preservation, documentation and promotion of Indian herbal medicinal plants. The effort started with assistance from United Nations, Ford Foundation and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the Denmark Government's bilateral funding arm for developing countries. There are 110 experts working on different facets of Indian herbs. It is in possession of land for further expansion, informed Sam Pitroda, chairman, FRLHT.
The IIAIM will provide a corporate identity to the Foundation. With the availability of trained manpower, it will be able to extend its services through hospitals, wellness centres and community clinics based on ayurveda and yoga, stated FRLHT chairman.
The achievements of the Foundation have been to promote the conservation of wild gene pools of medicinal plants. Around 84 forest gene plants have been identified in nine states. With this conservation exercise, FRLHT has established that India has the largest conservation pool in the tropical world. In the process it has helped not only to provide employment and save the environment.
There is no reliable data base for medicinal plants and FRLHT has created a cent per cent reliable medicinal plants material. These have botanical names in vernacular languages, represented in graphic formats, supported with agricultural information and phyto-chemistry characteristics. It is a multi disciplined format of information useful for the development of traditional medicine.
The foundation has also created the national repository of herbarium of Indian medicinal plants. It has also made efforts to create the first-ever medical manuscript repository. It has conserved the medical manuscripts in collaboration with the National Medical Manuscripts (NMM) to take up the task to co-ordinate a nationwide cataloguing of medicinal manuscripts.
Infosys has also supported in opening up an 18,000 sq. ft Vaidya Damodaran Memorial centre to preserve specimens of plants and fauna including metals and minerals.
Efforts are also on to conserve the gene pool of dying species. According to DK Ved, director FRLHT, around 200 species of plants are likely facing the prospects of extinction. These species are found in the Western ghats, Himalaya and North eastern states.
In addition, the foundation has also applied for patents for six of its products. These include a copper coil titled as 'Jal Bandhu' used to prevent water borne diseases which affects 700,000 children in India. Other five products include herbal oil, herbal food, herbal drink and formulation for blood sugar control.
The foundation is already in talks with promising entrepreneurs to upscale research for production. The discussions with an Ahmedabad-based small scale company are through for the production of copper coil.
The key objective of FRLHT is to develop an infrastructure to create a relationship between shastras and sciences and provide a scientific explanation of the traditional knowledge, added Pitroda.