The National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB), in collaboration with the Quality Council of India (QCI), India’s apex quality facilitation body, has developed and introduced a voluntary certification scheme for medicinal plants based on good agricultural and collection practices to enhance  confidence in the quality of  India’s  medicinal plant produce and make available good quality raw material to the Ayush industry.

The scheme will be overseen by a Steering Committee under the chairmanship of Secretary (Ayush), which would guide the development and operation of  the Scheme. The standards for certification have been put in place and will be taken care by the technical committee while the certification committee will look into certification related issues, according to the NMPB sources.

The standards for good agricultural practices and good collection practices were approved in January 2010 and certification related documents were finalised by the end of last year and the scheme has been put into operation now, sources said.

Under the Scheme, any producer/collector/group of producers/collectors can obtain a certification from a approved certification body (CB) and will be under regular surveillance of  the certification body. An option of getting a lot inspected and certified has also been made in the Scheme. It also allows certification of intermediaries like traders who may source certified medicinal plant material and supply further. QCI will initially provisionally approve some CBs for the Scheme but ultimately the technical competence of such CBs would be established through the internationally recognized concept of accreditation.

India has 15 agroclimatic zones and 17000-18000 species of flowering plants of which 6000-7000 are estimated to have medicinal usage in folk and documented systems of medicine, like Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathy.  About 960 species of medicinal plants are estimated to be in trade of which 178 species have annual consumption levels in excess of 100 metric tonnes.

There is global resurgence in traditional and alternative health care systems resulting in increased world herbal trade which stands at US$ 120 billion and is expected to reach US$ 7 trillion by 2050.  Indian share in the world trade, at present, however, is quite low.