AYUSH sector has surged to USD 24 billion in 10 years: AYUSH Ministry Secretary

New Delhi [India], March 22 (ANI): The 7th CII AYUSH Conclave, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry was held on Friday on the theme "Emerging trends in AYUSH: Unleashing the market potential".

The conclave has brought together opinion and thought leaders from AYUSH industry, academicians, practitioners, Central and State Government stakeholders, innovators/start-ups, medical and healthcare professionals.

The conclave highlighted measures for positioning AYUSH products in global marketplace, demand generation and future scope. It also witnessed discussions on the role of AYUSH in achieving universal health coverage, the entrepreneurship ecosystem of the sector and modern-day perspective on AYUSH.

Padmashri Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH draw attention of the stakeholders towards how AYUSH sector has achieved a value of 24 billion in 10 years.

He emphasized that post-COVID Covid global acceptance and domestic demand for AYUSH products and services has increased. He stated that Ministry is working with different organizations and Ministries to strengthen the research and evidence building in the sector.

He apprised the stakeholders that Ministry of AYUSH and ICMR has set up Advanced Centre for Integrative Health Research across selected AIIMS in the country, Ministry is also collaborating with AIIMS to set up a Department of Integrative Medicine.

He also highlighted that the Ayush Grid platform is working towards digitization of service delivery across the six functional areas- Health Services, Education, Research, Drug Administration, Medicinal Plants, and capacity building and media outreach.

Next, he highlighted that for achieving quality benchmarks across products and services, more work is to be done, industry and government should join hands towards achieving this objective.

Dr Rabinarayan Acharya, Director General, Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS) highlighted the government efforts towards strengthening the sector, collaborative research efforts to generate evidence.

He mentioned that the Ministry will help develop three key botanicals while ensuring quality, safety, and efficacy by 2030.

Shashwat Goenka, Chairman, CII National Taskforce on AYUSH, and Director, PCBL Limited highlighted the concept of holistic well-being given by AYUSH.

Rajiv Vasudevan, Co-Chairman, CII National Taskforce on AYUSH and MD & CEO, Apollo Ayur VAID Hospitals apprised the audience that the terminology defining diseases in Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medicine has been indexed as a code and included in the WHO Disease Classification Series, Global Centre of Traditional Medicine (GCTM) has been launched in India , IRDAI mandate to cover AYUSH treatments under insurance cover are big steps towards mainstreaming AYUSH.