Gangtok, March 24: The Centre has sanctioned 13 herbal gardens in Sikkim.

State forest, environment and wildlife management minister S.B. Subedi made the disclosure today while visiting Smriti Van and Bulbulay Zoological Park for a day-long inspection.

The areas are being spruced up for the visit of Union home minister Shivraj Patil, scheduled to visit Sikkim on April 2.

Subedi said the herbal gardens would be 100 per cent centrally-sponsored schemes. The state forest department and state medicinal plants board will share responsibility for their upkeep.

?The department will start work on a herbal garden at Hanuman Tok above Gangtok from April,? the minister said.

Christened Sanjeevani Garden, the medicinal plants will be grown on an 18-hectare plot, which was handed back to the department by the army, which previously used it as a firing range.

Subedi said the department has been encouraging farmers and members of the public to take up cultivation of medicinal plants and added that stress was being laid on using modern farming techniques to do so.

?We are even providing loans to interested NGOs,? he said.

Aggressive marketing, Subedi said, has already borne fruit with reputed companies like Dabur and Dey Pharmaceuticals showing an interest in buying the fresh produce.

While mentioning that the concept of smriti vans was novel, the minister said society at large could support the government?s conservation initiative by planting saplings of trees or flowering plants in the 200-hectare land, in memory of their dear ones or to mark an occasion.

?The concept was revolutionised in Sikkim by chief minister Pawan Chamling and today every village boasts of smriti vans,? he said.

There are 62 such smriti vans in the state at present.

At the 200-hectare garden below Bulbulay, some 2,856 persons, including VVIPs from all over the country and personalities and tourists from abroad, have planted saplings in memory of their near and dear ones since 1999.

The minister also visited the zoological park at Bulbulay.

The only one in the region that houses animals in their natural habitat, the zoo is being spruced up for the visit of Patil.

Subedi also visited the new enclosure that houses two snow leopards, brought on March 10 from Darjeeling zoo in an exchange programme.

The zoo also received four Tibetan wolves as part of the package.