New Delhi: The Modi government has formed a panel to assess the market size of AYUSH products in India, ThePrint learnt.
“Until now, the government has no clue about the size of the Indian market for AYUSH products and therapies. We have been using estimates calculated by the third party,” a senior government official from the Ministry of AYUSH told ThePrint.
“However, it is the first time the government has planned a market study to understand the economics behind the sector which is reporting higher growth due to Covid-19.”
The move has been triggered by the push given to the sector by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has been promoting the AYUSH therapies for improving the “immunity” during the Covid pandemic.
Modi has been advising the use of alternative medicine systems such as homoeopathy and Ayurveda to ward off coronavirus. Last year, Modi asked people to follow an advisory issued by the Ministry of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy), which suggests a range of home remedies to boost immunity.
Following the push, the ministry had created a panel, the Forum For Assessment of AYUSH Market Size (FAAMS). The group includes lobbies representing top herbal drug-makers of India including Vicco, Dabur, Himalaya, Zandu, Emami and Baidyanath.
The panel, formed in December, also includes the Ayurvedic Drug Manufacturers’ Association (ADMA), the Association of Manufacturers of Ayurveda Medicines (AMAM), the Association of Herbal and Nutraceutical Manufacturers of India (AHNMI) and other trade lobby groups.
They will work with the New Delhi–based autonomous policy research institute, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), and senior AYUSH ministry officials.
Industry associations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry are also part of the panel.
Assess the economics behind the AYUSH market
According to the ministry official quoted above, the objective of the panel is to “estimate the consumption and supply status of medicinal plants and final formulations, products and therapies in the country rather than depending on third party surveys”.
“This assessment will also help the ministry in designing the strategies for strengthening the sector to stimulate growth of the sector further,” the official said.
The official added that the export of medicinal plants has increased.
According to the Ministry of Commerce data, the export of medicinal plants from India has gone up. The data shows that in 2019-2020, India exported $283 million plants and parts of plants used for pharmacy. In the last nine months alone, (in 2020-2021, from April to December), India has already exported $273 million.
The AYUSH ministry has also requested the Ministry of Commerce to assign different HS Codes — internationally standardised systems where a numeric code is assigned to classify categories of goods — for AYUSH-based goods and medicinal plants so that their business can be monitored closely.
Until now, two meetings have taken place. Apart from the first introductory meeting, the panel met in March and has started discussions based on the CII’s study on the AYUSH market in India, released in January last year.
The study pegged the AYUSH market as a $10 billion market, which is expected to grow to a $15 billion market by 2020.
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A lot has to be done for rooting out cancer in India. There are a lot of people who say that they have got cured by by Gomootra and other ayurvedic medicines. It is time that the govt looked
into the authenticity of these ayrvedic treatments and make them available to the large number of cancer patients across India. The allopathic medicines are really expensive and beyond the common man’s reach.
Myself a cancer patient