The National Medicinal Plants Board has been allocated Rs 44 crore in the budget for cultivating medicinal plants and the Centre is planning to spend more than Rs 72 crore for different measures to promote and cultivate medicinal plants during the current year.

The measures will be implemented under the national mission on medicinal plants which was approved last year. Budget has earmarked Rs 8 crore for the mission in the budget, sources said. Out of the total Rs 72 crore, including allocation for Plants Board, set apart for the year, about Rs 8.5 crore has already been released.

The Medicinal Plants Board will utilize its allocation for cultivation of prioritized medicinal plants species over 75,000 hectares, raising of 50 lakh seedlings, setting up of centralized seed centre and nursery for cultivating planting materials for priority medicinal plant species, setting up of medicinal plants zones in six agro-climatic zones of the country, and market development assistance fund for plan building and marketing support.

The national scheme seeks to support cultivation of medicinal plants on private lands through farmers organized into self-help groups, cooperatives, producer companies etc in selected cluster by integrating medicinal plants into the farming system and thereby enhance income of farmers

It also aims at implementing and supporting certification mechanism in medicinal plants cultivation through adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Good Collection Practices (GCP), and Good Storage Practices (GSP) to promote standardization and quality assurance and thereby enhance acceptability of the Ayush systems globally and increase export of value added items like herbal extracts, phytochemical, dietary supplements, cosmoceuticals and Ayush products.

Government will also support setting up processing zones, clusters through convergence of cultivation, warehousing, value addition and marketing and development of infrastructure for entrepreneurs to set up units in such zones and clusters.