Review of Ministry of AYUSH
- Part 2 -

Press Information Bureau *

AYUSH Drugs Policy and related matters:

The Regulation and Control of AYUSH Drugs, which is critical for ensuring safety and efficacy of AYUSH Drugs continued to be a focus area during the year. The important achievements in AYUSH Drugs Policy and related matters in 2019 were - A system for AYUSH Drug Control was formalized with the notifying 9 regulatory posts. This indicates the maturing of AYUSH Drug industry.

India becomes one among the few countries to have specialized Drug Regulation for Traditional & Complementary Medicine; E-Aushadhi Portal for online license applications was strengthened by getting the State Licensing Authorities on-boarded. AYUSH Medicines were included in the Jan Aushadi scheme. Essential Drug List of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani & Homoeopathy was updated and revised.

The Central Sector Scheme of Pharmacovigilance for ASU&H drugs for safety monitoring of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathy drugs and surveillance of misleading advertisements in the print and electronic media was intensified during the year.

Grant-in-aid was sanctioned to establish a three tier network consisting of National Pharmacovigilance Co-ordination Centre (NPvCC), five Intermediary Pharmacovigilance Centres (IPvCs) and Peripheral Pharmacovigilance Centres (PPvCs). 63 PPvCs have been established under the five Intermediary and one National Centre. Reporting of adverse events caused due to consumption of ASU&H drugs started from January 2019 and nearly 250 cases of adverse effects of ASU&H drugs were reported in October 2019.

The Pharmacopoeia Commission for Indian Medicine & Homoeopathy (PCIM&H), Ghaziabad, an autonomous organization under the Ministry of AYUSH, continued its efforts to refine the AYUSH Pharmacopoeias. The pharmacopoeias are of special significance as they are official compendia of quality standards of the drugs imported, manufactured for sale, stocked or exhibited for sale or distributed in India. During 2019, PCIM&H released the following Pharmacopoeia Publications:

Unani: Released UPI, Part-II, Vol. IV containing monographs of 50 Unani formulations on Unani Day, 11th February 2019.

Homoeopathy: Homoeopathic Pharmaceutical Codex (e-copy) (45 drugs) has been released on Homoeopathy Day.

Pharmacopoeial Laboratory for Indian Medicine (PLIM) is another subordinate office of the Ministry of AYUSH which was active in strengthening and adding levels of sophistication to AYUSH practice. The major achievements of this laboratory during 2019 were: Completed 4 (four) training programme regarding drug enforcement officials/ Drug Inspectors and Quality Control personnels in 2019-20.

Analysis of 40 SugandhitDravya submitted to APC in 2019-20.

Completed 2 (two) Survey tour for Medicinal Plant in 2019-20.

Participate 1 (one) National level Arogya Fair in Vasai (Mumbai) in August 2019.

Delegation from Bangladesh visited PLIM in August 2019.

Creation of awareness about AYUSH Systems:

Creating awareness about AYUSH systems among the public is an important mandate of the Ministry. One of the biggest achievements in this regard was the successful conduct of the International Day of Yoga (IDY) 2019 on 21st June 2019. The Ministry succeeded in converting IDY into a mass-movement by adopting a strategy of identifying hundreds of stake-holding institutions and collaborating with them.

The celebration of 5thInternational Yoga Day (IDY) 2019 was muchbigger in scope and magnitude than in the past. The celebrations were spread not only in all States and Districts of India, but also across 150foreign countries. The main national event was held at the city of Ranchi, Jharkhand where Prime Minister performed Yoga along with nearly 30,000 yoga sadhaks.

Yoga Day events were held in many iconic locationsacross the world including the Opera House in Sydney, Eiffel Tower in Paris,the Washington Monument in Washington, the Cathedral of Brasilia in Brasilia, the Saolin Temple in China, the Dead Sea and the base of Mount Everest in Nepal.

Nearly 100 Seminars and Workshops for the public were held in different parts of the country on preventive and promotive aspects of AYUSH Healthcare by the Ministry and its Autonomous Bodies. In addition, nearly 50 patient education camps were conducted by the AYUSH institutions of the Ministry. Similarly, ten major Expos or Exhibitions on AYUSH themes were also held.

The Ministry of AYUSH in collaboration with Amar Chitra Katha, Mumbai published comic book named PROFESSOR AYUSHMAN: Comic Book for Children on Medicinal Plants & their Medicinal values.

Objective of the comic book is to increase Knowledge and awareness about medicinal Plants, identifying different types of Medicinal plants and their uses including growing them in gardens, encourage students to use herbs in food, popularize the uses of commonly available and frequently used herbal plants, conserve the associated traditional knowledge for future generations, in a fun and practical way.

Under the species specific campaign on Guduchi, called “Amrita for Life”11 projects were sanctioned on propagation of this plant which has immense ability to improve the immune system and the body resistance against infection.

Globalisation of AYUSH Systems:

The efforts to globalize the AYUSH Systems yielded notable success in 2019. At national & International levels many MoUs signed by the Ministry of AYUSH and Institutions and Councils working under the MoA. These MoUs signified the launch or intensification of joint efforts in research, education or other aspects of AYUSH Systems.

The BIMSTEC nations with whom India shares excellent political and social equations have agreed to jointly set up a BIMSTEC University of Ayurveda and Traditional Medicine in India. On behalf of the Ministry of AYUSH, AIIA hosted the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) workshop on Traditional and Complementary Medicine on 22nd October 2019.

In another landmark development, the world’s two largest Traditional Medicine Administrations collaborated for the benefit of the people of the two countries by signing the MoU between India and China on 12th August 2019.

MoUs signed by the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) during the year-2019 included - College of Medicine, UK on 18-20 April, 2019; MoU with Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, USA; Frankfurt Biotechnology Innovation Center, Frankfurt, Germany for research collaboration in the field of Ayurveda on 31st October, 2019; Western Sydney University (WSU), Australia on 21st November, 2019 at Ministry of AYUSH.

Induction of IT into AYUSH Sector:

During the year, the Ministry also took up a future-oriented initiative, namely, that of induction of IT into the AYUSH Sector. Named the AYUSH Grid Project, this envisages setting up an IT backbone covering all the silos of the sector.

The PM had lauded the AYUSH Grid Project of the Ministry and underlined the need to harness Information Technology to bring about a transformation in the AYUSH Sector.

The Ministry was able to implement many significant steps during this year in harnessing IT for transformation of the Sector. These include:

(i)The newly implemented AYUSH-Health Information System has been up-scaled to cover all the Units of the Central Research Councils.

(ii) An MoU with Ministry of Electronics &IT for comprehensive support in IT Projects was signed, and under it, BISAG Ahmedabad and NeGD New Delhi have started supporting the Ministry’s IT projects.

(iii) A Monitoring Dashboard broadly covering all activities of the Ministry has been set up.

(iv) Portals dedicated to IDY 2019 and Pharmacopia Commission.

(v) Standardised Terminologies for Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani systems, have been finalised, facilitating their future inclusion in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) of the WHO were codified. This would further pave the way for the globalisation of these systems.

(v) Launched Yogalocator mobile app to support the public in finding nearby locations for Yoga training,

Concluded ....