‘Tamil Nadu Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani Drug Manufacturers’ Association (TASUDMA) appears to be in deep crisis as some of the leading members of the association have severed their ties with it and have floated a new association called Indian Medicine Manufacturers Association (IMMA).

Industry leaders from some of the major ayurvedic manufacturing companies are in the forefront of the new group with the president of Milton’s Laboratories becoming the president of the newly formed association. R Govindarajan, executive director of Ceego Labs Private Ltd, is the secretary of the new association.  In the initial stages of registration, the association had the support of 16 manufacturing companies, and now the office-bearers claim that they have support group of 85 companies.

Information received from the ISM industry makes it clear that the existing organization, TASUDMA has split into two separate bodies. When contacted, Dr Vijay Mehtha, secretary of TASUDMA said he did not know about the new development, but welcomed it by saying that emergence of more organizations will help the growth of industry and solve the problems they are facing.

In an interview with Pharmabiz, IMMA secretary R Govindarajan said that the TASUDMA has failed in providing solutions to the problems faced by the industry all these years, hence they thought the necessity of a separate body. “We want an acting, functioning organization as we have invested crores of rupees into the business. Problems of regulatory affairs, issues of traders and company affairs have to be sorted out and solved. A person or individual unit cannot solve all these it needs the support of all manufacturers. An idle set up of organization is an additional burden to the industry also”, Govindarajan said.

According to the secretary, the leading ayurvedic companies in Tamil Nadu have got membership with IMMA. The leading players include Cholayil Pharma, Annai Aravind, Kniss Laboratories, Dr Milton’s Laboratory, Ceego Labs Pvt Ltd, Jyothi Labs, Herbalaya and TTK Healthcare Ltd. The association has representation from the districts of Namakkal, Salem, Dharmapuri, Madurai, Trichy, Coimbatore, Tirunelveli and Chennai. He alleged that there were no proper meetings held in TASUDMA for the last several months.

While elaborating the purpose of forming a new organization, he said there is no systematic unity among the ISM manufacturers in Tamil Nadu. IMMA will make attempt to re-unite and combine the manufacturers who are now scattered, and bring them under one roof. It will be the prime duty of the association to bring the updated quality standards at affordable cost in terms of manufacturing, processing and cultivation at world class facilities and to satisfy Ayush Protocol in more simplified procedural way. He further said the technical and scientific methods applied by allopathy system and its infrastructural facilities can be used for Ayurveda medicines also. This has to be implemented.

The association will work for alleviating the hardships of the manufacturers with regard to licensing and other regulatory issues that have been delayed without any reason for years. Whatever helps needed for industries to grow and develop into other states, will be extended for them. Special emphasize will be given for recovering the disappeared and perished varieties of medicinal plants with the help of agricultural department. Tamil Nadu has a total of 260 registered companies, out of which 85 have taken membership with the new association.