Efforts on to popularise home remedies

To popularise traditional home remedies and to cut down the intake of allopathic medicines even for minor ailments, a massive campaign has been launched in Mysore.

With the arrival of the British and popularisation of allopathic medicines, the traditional home remedies, including Ayurveda, suffered a major setback.

Traditional home remedies are on their last legs, with only a few among the elderly in some families, ayurvedic pundits and traditional healers keeping it alive.

Herbs, shrubs, climbers, herbs and roots were being used extensively for preparing different types of medicines which had no side-effects. These herbs have also gradually lost their importance. Some plants are no longer grown or have become extinct.

These were grown in the backyard of almost every house, and the elderly used them almost everyday either for cooking or for preparing one or the other home remedy. Some of these home-made recipes have major benefits and can be of real help in the present stressful life.

Realising this, the Forest Department and about 20 ayurveda doctors have launched "home remedies" programme. Led by Dr L Vasantha, a 10-member committee has prepared a syllabus for teaching home remedies to resource persons.

Campaigns in different extensions of Mysore have been chalked out. Collaborating in the campaign, the Forest Department has raised one lakh medicinal plants of 20 major varieties like 'Amrutha Balli' (Tinospora cordifolia), 'Ashwagandha' (Withania somnifera), 'Adusoge' (Adhatoda vasica), 'Tulasi' (Ocimum sanctum), 'Chakramuni' (Saropus androgynesis) and 'Dodda Patre' (Coleus amboinicus).

The programme envisages spreading home remedies among families in Mysore, training members of NGOs, sthree shakthi groups, self-help groups and village forestry groups by experienced ayurveda doctors.

The medicinal plants will be sold at a nominal rate of Rs 2 to popularise its cultivation at home with the help of high school students, says Mysore circle's conservator of forests G N Srikantaiah.

The entire programme is named "Sanjeevini" and the selected 20 varieties will be popularised for cultivation across the entire city.

The cultivation of these crops needs very little effort and costs very little and hence the campaign is catching up, deputy conservator of forests Srinivasulu adds.

With biotech industry fast gaining in importance and exports of plant tissues and plants like aloe vera becoming attractive, a programme on exports of plants is also being thought of, as some enquiries have already come forth in this regard, Srikantaiah told the Business Standard.