The public-private partnership (PPP), project to come up in Pune, envisages a modern drug laboratory to ensure quality control of ayurvedic products in addition to facilities for raw material processing, packing and labelling of the drugs.
Maharashtra and Kerala have been selected by the Centre's Ayush department (alternative medicine), under the health ministry, as the two states are leading in propagation and practice of the age old ayurveda that is finding global acceptance, said Dr Sunita Belagamwar, coordinator of the proposed venture, in which 60 per cent of the project cost would be borne by the Union Government.
Forty per cent of the capital investment is expected to come from private partners. The Maharashtra Ayush Cluster, as christened by the promoters, will be participating in the scheme by Bharati Kisan Sangh (BKS), which will ask its member farmers to go in for ayurveda medicinal plant cultivation for the processing to be done at the cluster.