About one lakh hectares of land will be covered under medicinal plants through direct financial assistance by the year of 2011-12 under the centrally-sponsored scheme of national mission on medicinal plants at a total outlay of Rs 630 crore.

The scheme, to be implemented through National Medicinal Plants Board, (NMPB) also proposes to cover another 80,000-100,000 hectares of land by extending incentives to farmers who may switch over from traditional crops to medicinal plants. This is apart from the one lakh hectare to be brought under medicinal plants cultivation directly.

Infrastructure for quality planting material, processing, warehousing, marketing, quality testing and certification will be promoted through cooperatives of growers, self-help groups, corporate etc. About 200 nurseries will be established both in public and private sector, for making available planting material of certified quality. The interventions are expected to generate approximately six crore man-days of employment by the year 2011-12, Board sources said.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has recently approved the scheme worth Rs 630 crore for this purpose under the 11th Plan. The scheme will help in developing medicinal plants sector through production of raw material of quality and standardized constituents for use by the Ayush industry and as well as for exports and thereby enhance the quality and acceptability of Ayush systems of medicine and promote export of value added items for a increased share in the world market, NMPB board official said.

The Board also was given recently Rs 321.30 crore for the existing central sector scheme, to be implemented during the current Plan period. It would be spent on R&D for domestication of wild medicinal plants, development of agro-techniques and post harvest management storage and processing, besides promoting quality assurance and standardization through development of good agriculture practices (GAP), good collection practices (GAP) and good storage practices (GSP) and through development of monographs on medicinal plants.

The Board will help develop, implement and support certification mechanism for quality standards, GAP, GCP and GSP and promote sustainable harvesting protocols of medicinal plants from forest areas, and certification there of with this fund. Survey, inventorisation and documentation of endangered medicinal plants through periodic surveys and inventorisation, creation of gene banks/seed orchards to create an authentic source of seed and germ plasm for future will also be carried out with this fund.