Wellness centres & traditional medicine

Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways and AYUSH Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday made a very significant announcement in Guwahati. Addressing a conference of Health Ministers of the North Eastern States for promoting of the AYUSH system of medicine, Sonowal said that as many as 1,000 new Health & Wellness Centres would be opened across the region in the next few years as part of the National Ayush Mission Scheme for growth and development of the Ayush system. He also said that this is part of a slew of major initiatives planned to boost traditional medicinal practices in the northeastern states. It was in March 2020 that the Union Cabinet had cleared a proposal of the Ministry of AYUSH to set up 12,500 Health and Wellness Centres under Ayushman Bharat across the country in a phased manner from 2019-20 to 2023-24. These Centres would be operationalized through the States in Centrally Sponsored Scheme mode and under the broad umbrella of National AYUSH Mission. As such there is nothing strikingly novel in Sonowal's announcement. But, since the Centre's vision is to establish a holistic wellness model to reduce the disease burden, out-of-pocket expenditure of the people and to provide informed choice to the needy public, the Union minister must consider it his duty to ensure that the centres come up fast and begin to function as early as possible. He can probably publicly announce a timeline for these centres to become truly functional. Sonowal on Saturday made yet another important announcement, this being the promotion of traditional medicine of the North-eastern Region through 100 AYUSH dispensaries under the National Ayush Mission (NAM) Scheme. It is, however, not in the public domain as to what specifically are the various traditional medicines prevalent in the northeast, as also whether any systematic research and development work has been done in this area. But then, it is important to note that the Northeast is the richest storehouse in the world as far as medicinal plants are concerned. While the Assam Forest Department had a couple of years ago started a programme to set up some medicinal and aromatic plant gardens, the exact status of this programme is hardly heard of or discussed. A few individuals like Gunaram Khanikar had made significant contributions to the development and promotion of medicinal plants and traditional and folk medicine in Assam. But most such individuals have either remained unrecognized or condemned as quacks. As far as the Wellness Centre scheme is concerned, what Sonowal, having been attached to Majuli after being elected twice from the island constituency, can probably look at is promoting a couple of Xatras as such centres. This will not only open up a new area for the sustainability of the Xatra institutions but also help put into productive use the traditional knowledge repository of these institutions founded by Mahapurush Srimanta Sankaradeva.