Haryana to set up Herbal Parks in all districts

Chandigarh, May 23 (UNI) The Haryana government has earmaked a sum of Rs two crore to establish Herbal Parks in all districts to propogate the resource base of medicinal plants in the state during the current financial year.

State Minister for Forests and Tourism Kiran Choudhry said that Haryana was the first state of the country to establish Herbal Parks in each district in order to popularise cultivation and use of Indian medicinal and aromatic plants.

She said the main objective for developing these Herbal Parks was to conserve the medicinal plants of Haryana for research and study.

This would help in establishing centres of sustainable medicinal plant resource base and producing quality seeds and seedlings for distribution to farmers, she said.

These centres in the long run would also emerge as potential tourist attraction points in Haryana, she added.

The Minister said that Herbal Gyan Kendras were also proposed to be set up in each district to educate people about the traditional Indian system of medicines.

She said that more and more farmers were adopting the cultivation of medicinal plants and soon the trend would shift from traditional cropping pattern thereby bringing about diversification in the farming sector.

The department would also help in making tie-ups and agreements with pharmaceutical companies in advance for buying of medicinal plants grown by the farmers, she added.

She said each Herbal Park had been named after some medicinal plant, such as Arjun-Vatika, Alovera-Vatika, Ashok-Vatika and Rudraksh Vatika.

UNI