The Chhattisgarh government is setting up a herbal medicinal park to promote quality raw material collection, value added manufacturing and packaging for the herbal drugs industry in the state at an estimated cost of Rs 46 crore.

The government has already identified an area of around 155 acres in Kurud, Dhamtari district and is currently in the process of land acquisition. The Chhattisgarh State Infrastructure Development Corporation (CSIDC) is the nodal agency for this project.

The government will initiate efforts to set up common facilities in the park for the use of herbal medicine manufacturers in the state, with the support of the industry to ensure quality of production, according to S C Agrawal, chief conservator of forest and chief executive officer, Chhattisgarh State Medicinal Plant Board.

"As far as we know, this is for the first time in India a state government is coming up with a project of herbal medicinal park. The park, intended to endorse value addition for the products manufactured in the state, is expected to be completed in next two years time," he added. The park is designed to promote pre-processing, intermediaries processing, manufacturing and trading of herbal and medicinal products.

Chhattisgarh, the state with almost 44 per cent of its total geographical area having green forests, is the home of about more than 1500 medicinally valuable species, according to the government estimates. Currently state has almost 15 to 20 herbal medicines manufacturing companies apart from the 97 production houses under the state forest department which is producing more than 100 herbal plant based drug and food dietary items in the brand name of Chhattisgarh Herbal.

As reported earlier, the state government is also initiating a Herbal Mandi (Herbal Market) network in the state, beginning from Dhamtari district named after the Dhanwantari - the father of Ayurveda - to enhancetrade of herbal raw materials. Besides, seven projects for production of high quality planting materials financed by the National Medicinal Plant Board (NMPB) is also in progress in the state.

With the herbal medicinal park, the government is planning to invite major herbal drugs manufacturing companies to set up their operations in the state which also offers tax benefits for the industries. The companies can utilise the government initiated projects to collect quality raw materials and can perform manufacturing process with the tax incentives by setting up operation in the park, added an official from the state Medicinal Plant Board.