Guwahati, Aug. 24: The Assam government will constitute a state yoga council to regulate institutions and individuals teaching yoga and naturopathy in the state.
The proposed council will grant affiliation/accreditation to institutions teaching yoga and naturopathy and confer registration on institutionally qualified professional practitioners of these two disciplines.
For setting up the council, the state government is going to enact a legislation called the Assam Yoga Council Act, 2017, and the bill is likely to be introduced in the next Assembly session starting from September 4 for consideration and passage.
Unlike medicine and engineering courses that are regulated by the Medical Council of India and the All India Council for Technical Education respectively, there is no regulatory body for yoga and naturopathy courses as of now.
The move came at a time when yoga centres and naturopathy clinics that claim to teach them are mushrooming.
The council will also crack down on quacks and fake institutions in these fields.
"Under the proposed act, if any person, who is not registered with the council, falsely claims so, will face imprisonment up to six months or/and fine up to Rs 3,000," a source said.
He said states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana already have such a regulation in place.
According to him, last year, the AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) task force of the central government had recommended a system for registration of practitioners and accreditation of institutes teaching yoga on the basis of guidelines formulated and issued.
The council will have a president and a vice-president and three members - all of them to be nominated by the state government - besides one member nominated by the vice-chancellor of Srimanta Sankardeva University of Health Sciences.
"Of the three members nominated by the state government, two will have to be qualified yoga practitioners," he said.
Though yoga and naturopathy are ancient forms of science which have their origins in India and have been practised and followed since ancient times, the Narendra Modi government has been promoting yoga in a big way by citing its health benefits and also organising International Yoga Day on June 21 in a grand manner.
