Ayurpark Health Care Limited, a Union government initiative to set up an Ayush cluster, is taking off in Karnataka. The Common Facility Centre which is a combination of manufacture and testing laboratory is set to commence its commercial operation on October 15, 2014. The Park is set up on a 2.5 acre at Malur district off Bengaluru  at an investment of Rs. 20 crore. It is established under the Central Sector Scheme for development of the Ayush Industry Clusters which was a national agenda driven by the Department of Ayush, in 2007 as a part of 11th plan.

Similar efforts were slated in the states of Kerala, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Maharashtra and the Konkan region. Karnataka stands third to commission the Ayurpark as Kerala and Punjab are already functioning.

The Karnataka Forest Industries Development Corporation will ink a pact with Ayurpark in an effort to strengthen the sourcing of quality medicinal plants to provide backward linkages.

The Common Facility at the Karnataka AyurkPark houses a state-of-the-art production centre. It is designed according to WHO- GMP plant norms. The production capacity in a single shift is 15 lakh tablets and 5 lakh capsules. There is also provision for tablet coating, besides herbal formation packaging in strip, blister and bulk. Care has been taken to ensure air quality of  0.1micron particles size. There is a separate area for primary processing which can handle one tonne of herbal raw material per day. There is also an area earmarked for Taila production with a capacity of around 500 litres per shift. Further, 6,000 litres oral liquids can be produced per shift.

The Ayurpark is seen to provide a big boost to the herbal drug manufactures. Currently, the state is home to 215 Ayurveda units and around 97 per cent are in the small scale segment. There is need to provide a facility for quality production, JSD Pani, president Karnataka Indian Medicine Manufacturers Association told Pharmabiz.

“The total project out lay is Rs. 21 crore out of which Government of India grant is Rs. 10 crore, Rs. 4 crore is from equity of the herbal industry members. The remaining Rs. 7 crore is from the Karnataka State Financial Corporation. The Union government had released the first installment of the grant in September 2009 disbursed Rs. 9 crore and another Rs. 1 crore is expected to come through shortly,” he added.

The built-up are area of the Common Facility Centre is 45,000 sq ft.  It is equipped with the sophisticated instruments like HPTLC, HPLC, FTIR, GC, AAS to name a few. The total investment for the instrumentation was Rs. 2 crore, said Pani adding that the quality control lab is set up to provide microbiology, chemistry testing among other to enable the herbal companies adhere to international standards.

Ayush industries in Karnataka will be using this quality control lab to test the raw materials finished products as well development of new products, said Pani.

Union minister for health and family welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan is expected to formally inaugurate the facility in the third week of November 2014.