Rise In Demand For Immunity Boosting Medicinal Plants In Odisha’s Cuttack

Cuttack: The staff at the Municipal Corporation’s medicinal plant garden here is busier than ever before. The sale of immunity-boosting plants and herbs has increased during the coronavirus pandemic.

With health experts emphasising on raising immunity to fight coronavirus infection, the demand has gone up so much that the nursery staff has started preparing saplings of medicinal plants like tulsi, giloy, ashwagandha etc., setting aside other varieties of fruit and flower-bearing plants and trees like mango, guava, rose, marigold etc, reported The New Indian Express (TNIE).

The CMC park in-charge Prakash Lenka told TNIE that the demand had started rising in mid-April. A total of 1,619 medicinal plants and herbs have been sold so far.

“Tulsi, giloy, and ashwagandha are the most sought after plants these days. In fact, the ashwagandha saplings have run out of stock for the last few days as the demand was so high. We are busy in preparing ashwagandha saplings to meet the demand,” Lenka told TNIE.

The other plants in demand are ganga shiuli, lemon grass, bramhi, aloe vera, thalakudi, multi-vitamin plants, stevia, mango ginger and curry leaves. The price of these saplings has been fixed at Rs 10 each while the same are available in the market at the price ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 150, he added.

“Earlier, our focus was mainly on ornamental and fruit-bearing plants as there were few takers for these medicinal plants and herbs. But now we have started focusing on these medicinal plants,” TNIE quoted Lenka as saying.

People have also started planting these medicinal plants at home since Ayurveda is promoting concoction made from them to strengthen immunity and fight infections.

TNIE further said with the rapid rise in infection more than 60 percent of residents in Cuttack are now having Ayurvedic ‘kadha’ or concoction.