The Ministry of Ayush and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) have renewed their partnership to establish harmonised scientific standards for medicinal plants under the ‘One Herb, One Standard’ initiative, aimed at improving the quality, credibility and global acceptance of India’s traditional medicines.
The Pharmacopoeia Commission for Indian Medicine & Homoeopathy (PCIM&H) and the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) renewed their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for another three years on Wednesday.
The MoU was exchanged by PCIM&H Director-in-Charge Dr Kousthubha Upadhyaya and IPC Secretary-cum-Scientific Director Dr V. Kalaiselvan in the presence of Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ayush and Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Prataprao Ganpatrao Jadhav and Ayush Secretary Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha at Kartavya Bhavan in New Delhi.
Addressing the gathering, Jadhav said India’s traditional systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa, Unani and Homoeopathy, form an important part of the country’s knowledge traditions and medicinal plant heritage.
He emphasised that scientifically developed standards for the quality, purity and standardisation of medicinal plants and medicines were essential to strengthening the credibility of traditional systems of medicine.
Common standards for medicinal plants
The ‘One Herb, One Standard’ approach seeks to establish a common, clear and scientifically reliable standard for the same medicinal plant when it is used across different systems of traditional medicine.
Jadhav said harmonised standards would reduce ambiguity among manufacturers, exporters, testing laboratories, regulators and other stakeholders while creating a coordinated framework for medicinal plant standardisation.
The monographs developed under the renewed partnership will take into account both Indian standards and international quality requirements. Aligning Indian standards with global benchmarks is expected to improve the reliability of Indian medicinal plants and products and facilitate their wider acceptance in international markets.
The Minister also said uniform standards could contribute to Ease of Doing Business by making regulatory and quality-assurance processes more streamlined, transparent and predictable.
50 monographs developed in first phase
The renewed agreement builds on an MoU initiated in 2022, under which PCIM&H and IPC developed 50 monographs of medicinal plants during the first phase of the initiative.
The new three-year framework will expand the standardisation effort and seek to harmonise standards for single drugs of plant origin used across Ayurveda, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa, Unani and Homoeopathy.
The collaboration is expected to bring together the scientific and standard-setting expertise of the two institutions to strengthen quality assurance and establish uniform and reliable standards for medicinal plants.
Boost to global acceptance
Jadhav said the renewed partnership demonstrated the importance of inter-ministerial cooperation in strengthening India’s traditional medicine sector.
He expressed confidence that the extended MoU would provide fresh momentum to the standardisation of medicinal plants while helping protect India’s rich biodiversity and traditional medicinal heritage.
The initiative is also expected to strengthen India’s position as a trusted global standard-setter in medicinal plants, traditional medicines and their quality standards.
The renewal of the MoU reaffirms the commitment of PCIM&H and IPC to advancing scientific excellence, quality and reliability in traditional medicine through a harmonised approach to botanical standardisation.
