India has taken another significant step towards strengthening the scientific foundation of its traditional medicine systems with the renewed push for the “One Herb, One Standard” initiative.
Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of AYUSH, Prataprao Jadhav, said the initiative is aimed at protecting India’s rich traditional medicine heritage while ensuring greater consistency, quality and credibility in medicinal herbs used across different systems of traditional medicine.
The initiative brings together the Pharmacopoeia Commission for Indian Medicine & Homoeopathy (PCIM&H) under the Ministry of AYUSH and the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The two institutions recently renewed their memorandum of understanding for another three years, building on their earlier cooperation to develop common scientific standards for medicinal plants.
One herb, one common benchmark
India’s traditional systems—including Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani—have a long history of using medicinal plants for healthcare. However, the same plant may sometimes be identified, described or standardised differently across various systems.
The “One Herb, One Standard” approach seeks to address this variation by establishing harmonised quality standards for medicinal herbs.
These standards are expected to focus on parameters such as the identity, purity, strength and quality of medicinal plant materials. Such uniformity can help reduce ambiguity in the identification and quality assessment of herbs used in traditional medicines.
Building on earlier work
The renewed collaboration follows the development of 50 medicinal-plant monographs during the first phase of the initiative.
A pharmacopoeial monograph provides scientifically defined information and quality parameters for a medicinal substance. Expanding this work could provide manufacturers, researchers, practitioners and regulators with a more consistent reference for evaluating medicinal plants.
Preserving tradition through science
For India, the initiative has significance beyond quality control.
Traditional medicine represents centuries of accumulated knowledge about plants, formulations and therapeutic practices. At the same time, modern healthcare increasingly demands scientific documentation, reproducibility and clearly defined quality standards.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to modernise traditional medicine, but to preserve its traditional identity while creating scientifically robust standards.
A common standard for medicinal herbs could help achieve that balance by providing a stronger scientific foundation without necessarily erasing the individual philosophies and practices of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and other traditional systems.
Potential global impact
Standardisation may also strengthen India’s position in the international traditional medicine sector.
As interest in herbal and traditional healthcare grows globally, consistent quality and scientifically documented raw materials become increasingly important. Harmonised Indian standards could help improve confidence among researchers, manufacturers and international regulators and potentially support the wider acceptance of Indian medicinal products.
For India’s traditional medicine community, “One Herb, One Standard” could therefore represent an important meeting point between ancient knowledge and modern science.
The success of the initiative, however, will ultimately depend on how effectively scientific standards are developed while respecting the distinctive knowledge systems and traditional practices from which India’s medicinal heritage has evolved.
If implemented carefully, the programme could help ensure that India’s medicinal plants are not only preserved as part of the country’s heritage, but also subjected to reliable standards that can carry that heritage confidently into the future.