Millions of rural households use a large number of herbal home remedies and diets as part of their health care. The contribution of local health traditions (LHTs) to health care is a significant one. Knowledge and use of these by ethnic communities across the 600,000 villages of India today is critically dependent on access to and availability of plant resources across different eco-systems. This continuity needs to be preserved, as about 4,600 Indian ethnic communities know of and depend on about 8,000 out of a total of 15,000 flowering plants for their health care needs. It is therefore an issue that warrants serious national and international attention. Easy access to plants is no longer as common as it used to be and under these circumstances, it is not surprising that local health traditions are being rapidly eroded. Unfortunately, there are hardly any government or non-government institutions working to keep this tradition alive.

Equally important is another issue: during eight five-year plan periods, both the central and state governments in India were able to provide only 3—4 per cent of their annual financial resources to meet the health care needs of the people. Of this, only 0.5 to 3 per cent was allocated to Indian systems of medicine. The government public health services use their resources mostly to meet the salary-related costs of Allopathic doctors and paramedical staff.