Date:22/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/22/stories/2008092252971700.htm

Business

Ayurveda cluster project gets Central approval

Special Correspondent

Joint venture between Kinfra and private sector

To promote Kerala brand of Ayurvedic products
To establish centre of excellence

KOCHI: The Union government has sanctioned Rs.10 crore for the Confederation of Ayurvedic Renaissance Keralam Limited (CARe Keralam), an Ayurvedic cluster project. CARe Keralam is a joint venture between the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) and private sector Ayurveda product manufacturers.

The project is to be set up in five acres of land at the Kinfra Industries Park, Koratty, in Thrissur district.

The project envisages raw material supply facility, quality control and R&D laboratory, toxic study centre, process validation laboratory, IT and marketing infrastructure.

More than 50 Ayurvedic product manufacturers have joined the cluster, Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem said at a press conference here.

The project will function as a centre for standardisation under the good manufacturing practices (GMP) accepted by the industry.

The company will work on documentation of various Ayurvedic products, which is a pre-requisite for the marketing of Ayurveda products abroad.

About 20,000 direct job opportunities would be generated in phases, the Minister said.

The total project cost is Rs.17.88 crore.

The final outlay of the project in a span of a few years will be about Rs.50 crore.

The project is approved by the Department of AYUSH – Government of India, under the scheme for development of AYUSH clusters.

The main objective of the consortium is to promote Kerala as a global destination for sourcing Ayurvedic products and services of internationally acceptable standards.

Apart from establishing a Kerala brand of Ayurvedic products, CARe Keralam will develop a Centre for Excellence for Research in Ayurveda, to be approved by international organisations, including the WHO.

It also aims at supplying free or subsidised seedlings and plantation facilities to farmers to ensure medicinal plant resources.

Senior government officials T.Balakrishnan, P.H.Kurien, Amitabh Kant, Ramnath and Manoj Joshi were present. Care Keralam officials Krishna Kumar and Joy Varghese were also present.