Medicinal Plantations

VANASPATHI VAN PROJECT

The Government of India  have mounted a programme of Vanaspathi Van Project to promote Indian System of Medicine and for development of medicinal plants in degraded forests. The APFDC has submitted proposals of Vanaspathi Van Project and GOI was kind enough to sanction the project and communicated vide Lr No. Dated: 31/8/01. The financial outlay of the project is Rs617.26 lakhs out of which GOI component is Rs512.74 lakhs and APFDC component is Rs104.52 lakhs. The period of implementation of the project is 7 years commencing from the financial year 2001 to March 2009.

Under this project APFDC has to take up ex-situ cultivation in 500 ha and in-situ cultivation in 2450 ha in Eastern ghats and Nallamalai zone coming under Rajahmundry and Kurnool Divisions respectively. Besides this, a propagation unit for medicinal plant species will be established in Dulapalli of Ranga Reddy Division.

I. THE OBJECTIVES OF THE SCHEME:

1. Exploration of medicinal plants in the areas reputed to be rich in such sources.

2. Standardization of nursery and planting practices.

3. Market study of various medicinal plants/plant parts through interaction with local collectors or pharmaceutical industries so as to fix up priorities in the choices of species for cultivation.

4. Develop a buy-back mechanism of medicinal plant/plant parts with drug industries.

5. Undertaking planting of economically valuable native medicinal plant species over an area of 3000ha of degraded forestlands in two of the traditionally rich areas namely Eastern Ghats and Nallamalai Hill ranges.

6. Standardisation of procedures of harvesting, field processing, storage and transport methods of medicinal plants/plant parts with emphasis on methods for value addition of the plant products before selling same to user agencies.

7. Designing a plantation model of polyculture for raising medicinal plants including trees, herbs, climbers and rhizome/tuber species so that economic returns from harvesting are well-spelt as some of them are seasonal, annual, biannual etc.

8. Building up awareness regarding the importance of the medicinal plants and their remunerative ness through demonstration plots, trainings and field visits.

9. Marketing medicinal plant/seed/seedlings/grafts to the public.

10. Developing linkages with department of ISM and their institutions and state pharmacies for sale of raw material.

II. PERIOD OF IMPLEMENTATION : 2000-01 TO October 2008

III. PROJECT AREA:

The areas include those under the control of APFDC where plantations were raised in the past and harvested and are at various stages of management extending over about 3000ha.

• Eastern Ghats: East Godavari district (Maredumilli zone) covering an area of about 2450ha

• Nallamalai zone: Kurnool district covering an area of about 550ha

• Dulapalli (Hyderabad): Medicinal Plant Propagation Unit

The species raised under ex-situ cultivation are:

i. Tree species:

Aegle marmelos, Emblica officinalis, Oroxylum indicum, Saraca asoca, Sterculia urens, Terminalia chebula, Terminalia bellerica.

ii. Shrubs & Climbers and Herbs & Grasses

Adathoda vasica, Aloe vera, Asparagus racemosus, Bixa orellana, Cassia senna, Chlorophytum borivilianum, Cymbopogon flexuosus, Gloriosa superba, Gymnema sylvestre, Piper longum, Rauvolfia serpentina, Tinospora cordifolia, Withania somnifera.

The year-wise raising of medicinal plant species in Eastern Ghats (Rajahmundry):

The species conserved in in-situ areas are:

Azadirachta indicia, Aegle marmelos, Andrographis paniculata, Asaparagus racemosus, Bauhinia vahlii, Emblica officinalis, Holorrhena antidysenterica, Gymnema sylvestre, Litsea glutinosa, Mallotus philippenensis, Pterocarpus marsupium, Strychnos potatorum, Terminalia bellerica, Sapindus emarginatus, Strychnos nux-vomica, Soymida febrifuga, Terminalia chebula.

The AP Forest Development Corporation has taken up large scale plantations of Amla with proven grafted varieties like NA-7, Chakaiya, BSR-1 etc., in Rajahnundry and Kurnool Divisions. The plantations will come for sustained yielding from 5^th year onwards. 

Besides these tree crops, inter-cultivation has been taken up in the same area with the  species of  Aloe vera Asparagus racemosus, Cholophytum borivilianum, Coleus forskohlii, Cymbopogon flexuosus, Cymbopogon martini, Decalepis hamiltoni, Rauvolfia serpentina, Tinospora cordifolia and Withania somnifera.

The nursery, cultivation & harvesting practices for most of the medicinal plant species is not standardized yet. The APFDC has taken up this task of standardizing the above practices for the species shown above.

Coleus forskohlii (Pashana bhedi)			Rauvolfia Sarpentina (Sarpagandha)

Rauvolfia serpentina (Sarpagandha) - Gajulapalli	Withania somnifera (Aswagandha)

Asparagus racemosus (Satavari)

Cymbopogon flexuosus (Lemon grass)	Cymbopogon martini (Palmarosa)

Aloe vera - Gajulapalli (Kurnool)	Rauvolfia serpentina - Sudikonda (Rjy)

Marketing of Medicinal Plants:

The APFDC is propagating various medicinal plant species with quality planting material. The planting material will be     supplied to the prospective growers of medicinal plants on cost basis.

The APFDC is also exploring the possibilities of marketing the medicinal plant products to various herbal companies. The Corporation  is also taking steps to install value addition units  for marketing of medicinal plants.

3.   Establishment of value addition Units:

The Corporation has installed  value addition units for  Amla and other medicinal plants at Divisions Eluru and Rajahmundry.

The companies which are interested in entering into buy-back agreement can contact us giving the details of the requirement of various Medicinal Plant Raw Materials and the rates so that we can have discussions on this matter.