The Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the Ministry of AYUSH have decided to work together to set up an Export Promotion Council to boost AYUSH exports. It was also decided in the review that the entire AYUSH sector will work together to achieve price and quality competitiveness to boost AYUSH exports.

Need for AYUSH Export Promotion Council (AEPC)

    • Global interest is growing in AYUSH- based solutions for disease resistance and treatment during the difficult times of the Covid -19 pandemic.

    • Trade and commerce in the AYUSH Sector needed to upscale quickly in order to meet the growing demands from India and abroad.

    • Emerging evidence of a correlation between the low Covid -19 mortality rates and large scale adoption of AYUSH prophylactic solutions by the population is significant for the public health practice in the country.

    • Coordination with the Commerce and Finance Ministries to work simultaneously on the quality and pricing of their products. 

    • To adopt evolving appropriate standards which could win international recognition

    • Coming together of industry and the Government in various aspects of branding and promotion.

About AYUSH

AYUSH is the acronym of the medical systems that are being practiced in India such as Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy. These systems are based on definite medical philosophies and represent a way of healthy living with established concepts on prevention of diseases and promotion of health.

The basic approach of all these systems on health, disease and treatment are holistic.  Because of this, there is a resurgence of interest on AYUSH systems. Yoga has now become the icon of global health and many countries have started integrating it in their health care delivery system. Similarly, there is great curiosity to understand the principles and practice of Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Siddha and Unani especially due to growing challenges in medicine in Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs), Lifestyle disorders, long term diseases, multi drug resistant diseases, emergence of new diseases etc. 

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)