Ayush Ministry may soon set up 4,000 health centres

New Delhi: If all goes as per the plan, the AYUSH Ministry may soon be able to establish about 4,000 health and wellness centres in the country in the next three months under Prime Minister Narendra Modi government's Ayushman Bharat scheme.

According to the officials, as the health and wellness centres would start opening in different states of the country by December 2019, the government is planning to provide Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani and Siddha medicine at such centres.

"Not only this, India is going to start work with China and Bangladesh soon in relation to AYUSH medicine. In August, both countries have also signed contracts with India," the official said.

"As Bangladesh had sought cooperation from India in setting up a drug testing laboratory on alternative medicine, a five-member delegation from Bangladesh had reached New Delhi so on August 21," the official said. There is already an array of Ayurveda drugs available in the market and some of them developed by country's prestigious research institutions like CSIR's BGR-34 for diabetes treatment. Similarly, DRDO has developed NEERI-KFT for kidney ailments after intensive research.

Union AYUSH Minister Shripad Naik had said that PM Modi has given a target to his ministry to set up 12,000 centres, out of which about 4,000 centres would start by the end of this year. Naik had told that apart from China and Bangladesh, Malaysia would also soon start an alternative medical facility with the cooperation from India.