The Regional Review Meeting, fourth in the row after Eastern, Madhya and Southern zone, on National Ayush Mission for six States/UTs, organised in Mumbai today brought together officials and representatives of Ayush from states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa and UTs - Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman & Diu.

This meeting was inaugurated by Union Minister of Ayush and Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal . The Union Minister of State for Ayush & Women and Child Development, Dr Munjpara Mahendrabhai along with secretary of Ayush Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha also graced the occasion.

Talking about National Ayush Mission as the flagship program of the Ministry of Ayush Shri Sarbananda Sonowal said, “National Ayush Mission (NAM) is being implemented with the vision and objectives to provide Ayush health care services throughout the country by strengthening and improving Ayush health care facilities, to provide informed choice to the needy public.”

Highlighting the importance of making Ayush available for all, he said, “It is a shared responsibility to channelise the support offered to States/UTs through National Ayush Mission to make this healthcare system available at grass-root level through Jan Bhagidari. “

The Union Minister laid emphasis on Integrative health care and said that, “ Modern and Traditional Medicine systems will have to go hand in hand to provide the best health care to the people. “

The Union  Minister also recognized the role World Health Organisation and Government of India in playing in propagating Traditional Medicine and said that the establishment of Global Centre of Traditional Medicine in Jamnagar Gujarat has opened new vistas of growth of scientific and evidence based Traditional Medicine systems of India, and through flagship program like National Ayush Mission we are making sure that the benefits of traditional medicine reaches to every nook and corner of the country.

On this occasion, Dr. Munjpara Mahendrabhai, said, “I believe we have to emphasize outcomes as a more meaningful measure of programme value than output. We may have to realign our strategies and techniques to plan, execute and report our performance that facilitates measure of outcomes. I am confident that such discussions will give us an opportunity to learn from each other's best practices and build a strong bonding among all of us.”  

Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, Ministry of Ayush sharing details about the Regional Review Meetings undertaken for National Ayush Mission said, “National Ayush Mission is a flagship scheme of Ministry of Ayush being implemented through State/UT Governments for development and promotion of Ayush systems in the country. The budgetary provisions for the NAM Scheme has also increased from 800 crore to 1200 crore. The Ministry has organised one-to-one review meetings with all States/UTs from The review meetings were attended by the Senior Officers, Commissioners and Mission Directors of different States/UTs and fruitful discussions were held during the review.”

Joint Secretary, Ministry of Ayush, Ms. Kavita Garg made a presentation on the progress of Ayush so far and the roadmap for Ayush for 2025. 

The inaugural session concluded with a 5-minute Y-Break (Yoga Break) Common Yoga Protocol.  

The program then had interactive session where Maharashtra, Goa, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andaman & Nicobar along with Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman &Diu presented detailed overview of National Ayush Mission in their respective region and deliberated on the salient points, way forward, success stories etc. as a part of knowledge sharing.

There were presentations by participating Research Councils/National Institutes of the Ministry of Ayush, and all the participants also observed Y-Break- a five-minute common Yoga Protocol during the breaks.

(PIB)