The Pharmaceutical Corporation (I.M.) Kerala Ltd. (Oushadhi), the Kerala Government's Ayurveda drug manufacturing company, has initiated a modernization cum expansion process by investing to the tune of about Rs 30 crores.

The investments are mainly envisaged in the area of medicinal plant cultivation, plant expansion and modernization, modernizing the research and development wing and setting up of a herbarium and starting a network of Oushadhi Panchakarma hospitals. The project is scalable from about Rs 14 crore to Rs 30 crore and various project proposals have been given to the government departments concerned in the state and Centre, N Gopinathan, managing director of Oushadhi told Pharmabiz.

Oushadhi expects the National Medicinal Plant Board and the Department of AYUSH to fund 80 per cent of its medicinal plant cultivation project, earmarked to the tune of about Rs 19.68 crore. Oushadhi has started cultivation of medicinal plants at an area of about 85 hectares at Kannur. Earlier, Oushadhi had been utilizing 5 hectares of its 8-hectare manufacturing premises at Kuttanellur near Thrissur for raw material cultivation. Availability of quality raw material is a major problem to meet demand, said Gopinathan.

Other proposals submitted by Oushadhi include- modernizing its Kuttanellur manufacturing plant and adding new facilities, setting up of raw material storage and processing centre, a modern administrative block, besides starting an Ayurveda Medical College. About Rs 12.39 crore is required as investment in these areas, including Rs 3.8 crore for modernizing the plant, as Oushadhi officials had revealed earlier. Apart from this, Rs 2.1 crore has been earmarked for modernizing the Research and Development wing of Oushadhi. Another idea is to develop the existing herbarium of Oushadhi by investing about Rs 5 crore.

Oushadhi, which recently started a Panchakarma Centre in Thrissur, is planning to set up similar Panchakarma centres in various parts of the state. A proposal to start similar centres in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikkode, Kumarakom in Kottayam and Eranakulam at an investment of about Rs 10 crore has been submitted to the Kerala Government.

Oushadhi's OTC drug 'Pramehaushadhi' for diabetes patients move to the tune of Rs 60 to Rs 70 lakhs in a year, and other fast moving products of Oushadhi include Saraswatharishtam, Rheumajith and Dasamoolarishtam. The company has major orders from the Governments of Chattisgarh and Pondicherry, said Gopinathan.