With the National Medicinal Plant Board (NMPB) going ahead with its plan to implement Voluntary Certification Scheme for Medicinal Plant Produce (VCSMPP) with the Quality Council of India (QCI), the leading Ayush drugs manufacturing companies in north India are of opinion that the scheme is unlikely to be supported by the medicinal plant cultivators and growers of medicinal herbs.

Citing reason for the improbable non-compliance of norms of the scheme by the cultivators, the drug manufacturers have commented that the earlier scheme of voluntary certification, Ayush Marks, introduced by the previous Department of Ayush in 2010 was a failure and had caused huge financial loss to the manufacturers. So, the community of plant cultivators who is an inseparable part of the manufacturing industry has to think twice before going ahead with the scheme.

According to them, it is unwise and unwanted decision by the NMPB to advise the manufacturers of raw materials for ayurvedic and herbal drugs industry. First of all, the Ministry of Ayush and the NMPB must educate the domestic and international regulatory bodies about the scheme and thereby to convince the manufacturers of medicinal plants and herbal produce and implement the program accordingly. Otherwise the fate of the VCSMPP will be the same as of the Ayush Mark scheme, they said.
 
Whereas, the Ayurveda Medicine Manufacturers Organisation of India (AMMOI) from  Kerala has welcomed the scheme.
 
DoP had launched voluntary certification scheme of quality, Ayush Standard Mark and Ayush Premium Mark for Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) products sold  in domestic and international markets. It was a joint initiative of the Department of Ayush in collaboration with the QCI to encourage voluntary compliance to domestic regulations and international norms, and also to enhance the consumer confidence. The present certification scheme, VCSMPP, by NMPB is meant for raw material industry.

Pointing out that the Ayush Mark scheme could not help the drug manufacturers in their business in the international markets, the companies which had taken Ayush Premium Mark Certification by spending lakhs of rupees, said the scheme failed miserably immediately without garner any support from the industry. Later the Department of Ayush remained silent over the scheme all these years, commented a leading manufacturer from Noida. Though the certification scheme for medicinal plants was voluntary, he said, it could not help industries because it was not recognized nationally and internationally. The DoP as well as the QCI had desolately failed in promoting Ayush Marks both in India as well as in international markets, he added.

“Manufacturers like us who took the Ayush Premium Mark Certification had spent lakhs of rupees for this certification. But none of our valued importers in the USA, Europe, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other countries was ready to use the mark on the labels as their countries had no knowledge/information about the benefits that accrued due to such certification”, commented the manufacturer who was one of the first five who secured the voluntary certification in 2010.
 
According to information received from the National Medicinal Plant Board, now it has decided to expedite the implementation of the scheme which is based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Field Collection Practices (GFCP), because the Ministry of Ayush expects that the introduction of VCSMPP will encourage GAP and GFCP in medicinal plant cultivation and produce collection which will raise the quality and safety of the raw materials used for Ayush products.