The Defence Ministry announced on Wednesday that Ayurveda clinics will open in 37 cantonment hospitals around the country on May 1 to offer more people the benefits of Indian traditional medicine.
In an official statement, the ministry noted, "The move will make available well-established and time-tested therapies of Ayurveda to the residents of cantonments, including armed forces personnel, their families and civilians availing health services from these hospitals."
It was decided to establish the clinics at a recent high-level meeting between Defense Secretary Ajay Kumar and Secretary Ministry of AYUSH Vaidya Rakesh Kotecha. The Ministry of AYUSH is supplying qualified AYUSH doctors and pharmacists to the 37 cantonment hospitals to support this endeavour, according to the statement.
"Officials of Directorate General of Defence Estates (DGDE), Ministry of Defence and Ministry of AYUSH would work in close collaboration to make these 37 Ayurveda Centres functional," the MoD statement further read. Agra, Allahabad, Bareilly, Dehradun, Mhow, Pachmarhi, Shahjahanpur, Jabalpur, Badami Bagh, and Barrackpore are among the 37 cantonment hospitals.
In 2019 the AYUSH ministry and the Defence ministry inked an MoU to provide traditional medicine services at military hospitals and clinics. Shripad Naik, then Minister of State for AYUSH, launched an Ayurveda Palliative Care Unit at the Base Hospital in the Delhi Cantonment on Monday.
