Patna Women’s College students and members of the eco task force at the inauguration of the herbal garden on Thursday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Feb. 24: The eco task force and education department of Patna Women’s College inaugurated a herbal garden on the campus today under the scheme of National Environment Awareness Campaign sponsored by the Union ministry of environment and forests.

Arvinder Singh, the director of state department of agriculture and horticulture, and Abhay Kumar, the director of Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, were present at the programme.

Inaugurating the garden, Singh said: “This is a small beginning on the part of the college but it is time for all of us to start thinking about promoting herbal gardening. Traditional herbal plants are losing their relevance in this age of science. With the discovery of allopathic cure, medicinal plants have gone missing from our gardens.”

Singh said: “however, the central government has come up with several schemes to facilitate the development of medicinal herbs.”

Singh said: “The pharmaceutical companies can utilise these herbs to replace the allopathic medicines, which often have severe side effects. All of us are aware of the importance of medicinal plants like castor, turmeric and basil — we just have to return to our cultural roots. This will not only be lucrative for medicinal purposes, it will also be economically beneficial for the state, which focuses on agriculture.” On the state government’s initiatives to boost herbal farming, Singh added: “The state is focused on taking herbal farming in the right direction and various schemes have been started in the districts with the help of central funding.” Singh said the programme aims to promote nurseries and provide 20 per cent and 50 per cent subsidy to government and private institutions respectively, interested in herbal farming.”

The programme covers herbal farming of aloe vera on 42,500 hectares, brahmi on 40,000 hectares, amla on 65,000 hectares and tulsi on 30,000 hectares, among others.

Abhay Kumar said: “We all are familiar with the importance of these herbal plants in our lives. But because of lack of knowledge and technology, we do not utilise them to our benefit. We should remember to maintain a balanced relationship with nature. Several species have become extinct in nature because of our ill treatment. We should focus on bio-diversity and inculcate the knowledge among the masses.

“In districts like Banka, farmers have been involved with herbal gardening. In spite of their efforts, they fail to profit from their ventures, as they cannot market their products properly. The government should support these farmers, who have decided to adopt herbal farming,” added Kumar.

Singh said the government has witnessed active participation of farmers from places like Bhojpur, Buxar, Nalanda, Kaimur, Saharsa and Begusarai. About the assistance from pharmaceutical companies, he said Baidyanath and Divya Pharmacy have been operating in Bihar for the bulk production of herbal medicines.

He added future of herbal farming in the state is lucrative and viable in comparison to traditional farming as it assures the farmers at least three times return.