Digital inventory of medicinal plants underway in Pune

The Maharashtra government’s Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission is setting up a digitised inventory of medicinal plants of Maharashtra. The inventory will come up by March 2012.

The commission, in April 2009, initiated the project of Rs3 crore with the Agharkar Research Institute, Pune. In all, 14 universities in the state have been given the task of compiling the data of the medicinal plants in the different districts.

Shivaji University (SU) has been given the responsibility of compiling the data from Sangli, Satara and Kolhapur. The university’s botany department’s associate professor, DK Gaikwad, is co-ordinating the project in the SU.

Gaikwad said that information on the medicinal plants like their location, GPS mapping, usage of the medicinal plants in various diseases; life stages of these plants, suitable environment and photos are being collected. This information will later be put up on a website.

In fact, 300 medicinal plants have been selected on priority basis. However, the SU has collected information on 450 medicinal plants.

“The project is immensely important in the age of globalisation. Once the digital inventory is ready, it will be easy to claim the patent on these plants. Besides, we will get to know which plants are threatened and their conservation programme can be launched. This project will also help in the research on the medicinal properties of the various plants,” he said.