Dhanvantri

Gujarat State Forest Development Corporation Limited is engaged in collecting, processing and marketing of Minor Forest products among its various activities. The activity has tremendous bearing on forest resources utilization and tribal employment generation.

Many of the Minor Forest Products are principal raw materials for manufacturing of Ayurvedic medicines as well as herbal preparations and remedies. It is also observed that forests of Gujarat have abundance of raw material other than those being collected by the Corporation, which are also prime raw materials for these products.

Scope for cultivation, of such herbs, shrubs and trees is also quite good. Thus it was felt that if value adding programme is institutionalized in form of Ayurvedic Project by the Corporation not only to enhance the collection of existing MFP but also to offer scope of adding many more herbal product including MFP to augment resource mobilization and employment generation for the tribal and rural poor.

The activity was also conceived as value added product manufacturing programme to ensure expansion and growth of the Corporation as well as diversifying the activity and income bases in the long run.

On the other hand market for Ayurvedic Medicines and herbal remedies is expanding nationally and internationally. With this background Ayurvedic and Herbal preparation project was conceived under the brand name of Dhanvantari.

Manufacturing process of Ayurvedic Products & Honey

Dhanvantari Project was set up in the year 1991-92.The Project had Capacity to manufacture various Powders, Tablets and Oils.

Manufacturing of said items is done in three processes. Firstly the raw materials are cleaned and graded and then they are sent for Powdering, Pulverizing and Mixing then finally they are packed in airtight containers of 100, 200 and 500 gms. The following Machines are used for manufacturing. Good manufacturing practice and good laboratory practices are maintained

Disintegrating Machine
Pulverizer
Edge-runner
Shifter Machine
Drying Machine
Tablet Machine
Granulator

This unit Manufactures 22 types of Churna, 4 types of Tablets, 2 types of Oil and 8 types of Proprietary products.

Apart from manufacturing of Ayurvedic medicines, GSFDC limited is also processing Honey. It has a processing capacity of 1,50,000kgs. per annum. Honey is sold in different packings of 100, 200, 500 gms and bulk paking of 5 & 20 kgs. It is proud to have state-of-art fully automatic Honey treatment plant and bottle filling plant to guarantee quality to the valued customers. Various MFPs like Amla, Harde, Baheda, Musli and various types of Gums like Babul, Guggal etc. are also graded & packed in 100, 200 and 500 gms. in polythene bags. Entire range of products is marketed under the brand name of Dhanvantari.

HONEY

The Most Nutritious Food

Honey is sweet liquidgathered by Honey bees from nectar or other secretions of plants which they transform by addition of enzymes and evaporation of water in it. Honey is the most wonderful GIFT OF GOD and mother NATURE to mankind. Honey is held in high esteem, next only to AMRIT, the Ambrosia. It was the only sweetening agent known to the early man, and naturally found its way into traditions, rituals, customs and food of every religion and nation. It is the sweetest way to get your daily dose of essential nutrients – carbohydrates, minerals, amino acids, proteins and vitamins. It is the most COMPLETE NATURAL FOOD. The best known advantage of honey lies in its pre-digested form, hence, even an infant can get direct benefit from it. Honey provides instantaneous replenishment of energy losses.

Types of Honey

APIARY HONEY: Honey produced by the Indian hive bee, Apis cerana indica and the European bee, Apis mellifera, in apiaries and collected by the modern extraction method, is called apiary honey. Apiary honeys are transparent and free from foreign materials.

FOREST HONEY: Honey produced by the rock bee, Apis dorsata, or wild nests of Apis cerena indica, Apis florea in forest and collected by the crude method of squeezing the comb, are termed as forest honey is turbid due to the presence of a lot of pollen, wax, brood and other parts of bees and plant materials. To separate the suspended particles, an extra filtration of honey which gives clarity is necessary.

Kachchh District – the Honey bowl of Gujarat

Kachchh district – better known as the desert area – can well be considered as the Honey bowl of the state of Gujarat as around 100 to 120 metric tons of Honey is procured by Gujarat State Forest Development Corporation (GSFDC)– a state PSU – from this district annually. It is noteworthy that sensing the potential of this activity, GSFDC had started Honey procurement in Kachchh district more than 32 years ago and has still been continuing with it.

The presence of Baval Bushes and the Small Honey Bees in this district are mainly instrumental for such a large volume of Honey production, which again needs support of climatic conditions. Apis florae bees – habitant of Kachchh district – are mainly seen on Cactus, Prosopis juliflora (Gando Baval in local language) and thorny trees spread in dry and barren areas of this district. In fact, Gando Baval, the highly invasive thorny shrub that has devastated huge tracts of land, has actually turned out to be a remarkable money-spinner for the poor in this district.

Role of GSFDC in collection of Forest Honey

GSFDC, established by the state Govt. with a prime objective of uplift of tribal, has also extended its helping hand to the poor and under-privileged class of the society. Bhuj, Nakhatrana, Abdasa and Rapar talukas of Kachchh district are the main pockets of Honey production. Not less than 3000 BPL families residing in at least 50 villages of these talukas are engaged in Honey collection process. They belong to traditional Honey Collector Class communities who gather Honey from interior areas and deliver it at GSFDC’s Honey collection centres against remunerative price pre-determined and widely publicised by GSFDC. Honey collection season is spread over just three months of summer viz. March, April and May when no gainful employment is available to Honey collectors depriving them of any source of income. Thus GSFDC’s gesture of providing them with gainful employment in the form of Honey collection has come as a boon to them.

Being well aware of its social responsibility, GSFDC has also been constantly endeavouring to provide employment opportunities through Honey collection to more and more local people who come from economically backward class of the society and increase Honey collection charges year by year.

GSFDC has also been conscious in imparting training to Honey gatherers through experts so that good quality of Honey is collected and consequently they get higher remunerative prices. Honey collectors now smoke out the bees from the Ganda Baval tree and collect Honey without causing any harm to the bee babies for another round of collection. In addition to this, GSFDC also provides them with implements being used in Honey collection such as stainless steel utensils, scythe, spoon etc.

Honey Processing & Packaging

GSFDC has an ultra-modern Honey Processing Plant near Vadodara where Forest Honey so procured is scientifically processed and bottled and marketed under “Dhanvantari” brand, it is available in different packings of 100 gms,200 gms,500 gms, 1 kg and bulk packings of 5 & 20 kg. It is sold through retail sale counters located in main cities of the state like Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh, Himmatnagar, Gandhinagar, Godhra, Vadodara, Surat, Vyara, Kevadiya (Ektnagar), Rajpipla, Vansda (Vanil Udyog).

GSFDC takes pride in claiming that it is the only organisation which has made nutritious Forest Honey available to consumers. It is equally a matter of pride for the urban consumers that with their every purchase of a “Dhanvantari” brand bottle of Honey, a rural house somewhere in deep forests gets a new surge of life.