By NewsGram Staff Writer

To promote traditional medicines, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government is planning to set up National Institute of Medicinal Plants (NIMP) at a cost of about Rs 100 crore.

"The government is considering setting up of National Institute of Medicinal Plants (NIMP) for which an allocation of Rs. 100.00 crore has been made during the 12^th Plan, out of which funds amounting to Rs. 50.00 lakh are earmarked during the current financial year. In this connection, the government is in the process of identifying suitable land in the country," Minister of State, AYUSH(I/C), Shripad Yesso Naik informed Lok Sabha today.

To identify the medicinal and aromatic plants, the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), an organization under Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has been assigned a task to carryout survey and documentation of all plant resources of the country , Naik said.

The BSI is the nodal repository for reference plant collections and at present houses about 3.2 million specimens in its different herbaria.

The MoS , AYUSH(I/C) also informed that to prevent misappropriation of the country's traditional medicinal knowledge a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) has been set up which entails transcription of Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha codified texts into English, German, French, Japanese and Spanish.