Context: Recently, Union Minister for AYUSH and Minister of State for Defence virtually inaugurated the Regional Raw Drug Repository (RRDR) for ASU&H Medicine (Southern Plateau Region) at National Institute of Siddha.
About Regional Raw Drug Repositories (RRDRs)

• RRDRs are important components of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme, National AYUSH Mission.
• The repositories play an important role in medicinal plants cultivation.
• As a step in this direction, the Ministry of AYUSH, through the National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB), initiated the establishment of the National Raw Drug Repository and Regional Raw Drug Repositories.
• The collaborating institutes as identified by the NMPB are the National Institute of Siddha, with the Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, and the Siddha Central Research Institute, all three located in Chennai.
• The RRDR in Chennai would play a major role in the collection, documentation, and authentication of raw drugs collected from the agro-climatic region, that is, the Southern Plateau Region.
• This RRDR will not only act as collection centres of raw drugs available and used in the southern region but also as an accredited reference library for authentication of raw drugs and establish standard protocols and keys for authentication of raw drug used in the herbal industries.

Significance

• Medicinal plants form the major resource base of India’s indigenous health care traditions.
• Their relevance has grown substantially in the current pandemic scenario, thanks to their disease preventive effects.
• The outreach and acceptability of AYUSH systems, both nationally as well as globally, are dependent on the uninterrupted availability of quality medicinal plants based raw material.
• Though most of the raw drugs are commonly available, there is a lack of scientific documentation that makes research on these medicines very difficult. This also reduces the chances of commercial exploitation of these medicines.
• Easy availability of authentic scientific data of the raw drugs will promote research on the medicines belonging to the AYUSH system which will lead to further propagation of these systems.

Additional Information

• Currently, India has more than 9000 manufacturing units for Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homeopathy medicine.
• However, the quality of medicines produced by these units critically depends upon the manufacturing process followed as well as the quality of raw material.
• The Government has made it mandatory for all manufacturing units to adhere to the Good Manufacturing Practices as notified under Schedule T of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940.