In order to promote AYUSH systems, Government has taken a number of steps and implemented many initiatives. Centrally Sponsored Scheme of National AYUSH Mission and the strategy of mainstreaming of AYUSH under National Health Mission and National Health Policy-2017 are implemented for promoting and strengthening AYUSH sector. Financial support is provided through Centrally Sponsored and Central Sector Schemes for various activities in the field of AYUSH including infrastructure development and supply of medicines to the dispensaries and hospitals in the states. Central Regulatory Bodies, Central Research Councils, National Institutes, All India Institutes, National Medicinal Plants Board, Pharmacopoeia Commission of Indian Medicine & Homeopathy and Pharmacopoeia Laboratories of AYUSH have been set up and the network of AYUSH institutions in the states is being expanded and strengthened. Under the strategy of mainstreaming of AYUSH, AYUSH facilities are being set up in PHCs, CHCs and District hospitals through National AYUSH Mission. Till date, AYUSH facilities have been co-located in 506 District Hospitals, 374 sub district Hospitals, 2871 CHCs, 8995 PHCs, and 5716 other healthcare centers. Magnitude of AYUSH infrastructure in the country has reached 7,99, 879 registered practitioners, 702 undergraduate colleges with annual admission capacity of 46837 students, 212 postgraduate colleges with annual admission capacity of 4876 scholars, 3986 Government hospitals and 27199 dispensaries. For promotion of AYUSH systems across the globe, Ministry of AYUSH has signed Country to Country MoUs with 18 countries for cooperation in field of Traditional Medicine and Homeopathy, 19 MoUs for undertaking Collaborative Research/ Academic collaboration and 13 MoUs for setting up AYUSH Academic Chairs in foreign Universities. 31 AYUSH Information Cell have been set up in 28 countries to disseminate authentic information about AYUSH systems.
The quality of education of Ayurvedic, Unani and Homeopathy systems of medicine is rather regulated respectively in accordance with the provisions of Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970 and Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973 and the regulations thereunder for standard requirements of educational courses. Exclusive regulatory & quality control provisions for medicines of these systems are provided in the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules thereunder. Patent or proprietary new formulations of Indian Medicines are evolved, manufactured and are available in the market. Research Councils of AYUSH and other Research & Development institutions in the country have worked and are working further on various medicinal plants and herbs to evolve new medicines for treatment of various diseases. Details of such research studies are provided in the website ayush portal.nic.in and are published in various scientific journals. ndian Medicine and Central Council of Homeopathy. The Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani & Homeopathy education is being imparted under graduate and post graduation in specialties as per the relevant regulations made under Indian Medicine Central Council Act, 1970 and Homeopathy Central Council Act, 1973 respectively. This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for AYUSH, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.
Digitisation of AYUSH
Ministry of AYUSH has conceptualized AYUSH GRID Project for digitising AYUSH healthcare delivery at all levels. The details are as under:
The AYUSH Grid Project is the proposed IT backbone for the entire AYUSH sector covering the healthcare systems Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy. AYUSH Grid is envisaged as an omnibus digital eco- system that would lead to all round development of the AYUSH sector in fields of healthcare delivery at all levels, research, education, schemes and various health programs.
To develop a network of People, Knowledge and Technology for radical, sustainable and wholesome transformation of AYUSH sector, and play a pivotal role in taking care of holistic health care needs (i.e. curative, preventive and promotive health) and socio- economic wellbeing of Indian citizens and further extending the benefits to entire world population.
To create an organic and dynamic information and communication technology (ICT) powered network interconnecting all streams of AYUSH in their key functional areas viz. health care delivery, capacity building, research & development, AYUSH drug regulation and education. This will be beneficial for all stakeholders of AYUSH and also helpful for effective governance. Strategies for development will be in sync with the national and international policies and health care needs.
The main components of AYUSH GRID Project are as under:
Health Services
Education
Research
Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes
Training
Citizen Centric Services
Drug Licencing Portal
Media Outreach
Health is a state subject and the concerned state Government adopt various measures to improve the Government health delivery system, including AYUSH Systems of Healthcare. At the Central level, the Ministry of AYUSH also takes various initiatives to achieve this goal, mainly through interventions in areas like AYUSH education, AYUSH Research, establishing and running national level institutes, setting guidelines for drug regulation, setting benchmarks for AYUSH digitisation and forgoing international collaboration in relevant activities. Further, Ministry of AYUSH has launched Pilot Project of AYUSH Health Management Information System (A-HMIS) on 05.11.2018. As on today, 82 health facilities (NI’s and RC’s) under the Ministry are using available modules of A-HMIS. The Ministry has also launched training programmes in A-HMIS. An IT Course for AYUSH Professionals for capacity building of AYUSH Doctors in use of Digital Technologies in Healthcare for improvement of healthcare delivery system in AYUSH has been initiated with the support of C-DAC, Pune.