Herbi-chew to be promoted as gutkha substitute

LUCKNOW: Herbi-chew, a herbal substitute for gutkha developed jointly by the National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) and Central Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plant (CIMAP) would be widely propagated in the country. The advice came from Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union cabinet minister for science and technology, on Wednesday. The minister was on a visit to NBRI on the day.

Addressing the scientists after taking a round of various departments and collecting information about the research works, he said, “The product should not be kept as a piece of research and should be widely propagated as a gutkha substitute. In fact, the research on the product should continue and scientists should take the feedbacks into consideration to improve it and ensure its wide acceptability in every household.” He said, “This product Herbi-chew can become a movement in the country against tobacco.”

The minister emphasised that all researches being done in the laboratories of the CSIR institutes should be focused on general public and their utility. “We must ensure that the researches are not limited to laboratories and are disseminated for wider use,” he added.

The minister also launched the online herbarium of NBRI on the day. He visited various laboratories and discussed about the researches being undertaken by the institute. The online herbarium can be viewed at website (www.nbri.res. in). It makes a wide collection of herbarium in possession of NBRI accessible to a larger audience and researchers.

The scientists emphasized on the significance of database in disseminating knowledge among public, students, researchers in various ways including fast retrieval of information on the label data and value additions in the form of upgraded taxonomy, images, video images, geographical distributions and genomic information and GIS maps, which is otherwise not available on herbarium sheets.