National programme on panchgavya

The Ministry of Science and Technology has initiated a three-year national programme on scientific validation and research on ‘panchgavya’, a concoction of cow products, including cow dung and cow urine.

Used in traditional Hindu rituals, panchagavya or panchakavyam is a mixture of five bovine products — dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee. These are mixed with jaggery, banana and tender coconut in a proper ratio and allowed to ferment for several days to produce panchgavya.

The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has created a 19-member national steering committee, headed by Union Science Minister Harsh Vardhan, to implement the programme and guide the research agenda.

Other members of the steering committee include R A Mashelkar, former director general of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Vijay Bhatkar, chancellor of Nalanda University and the brain behind the indigenous PARAM supercomputers. Four professors from IIT-Delhi, including director V Ramgopal Rao, will also be part of the committee, apart from secretaries from various scientific departments of the central government.The programme is also supported by the Department of Biotechnology and CSIR.

“We consider panchgavya a natural product. Earlier, the CSIR had looked into some of its properties. We will now look into other aspects, such as its medical use and use in building construction in rural areas. The proposals have to be scientifically evaluated first,” Ashutosh Sharma, DST secretary and former professor at IIT-Kanpur, told DH.

The programme will concentrate mainly on the scientific validation of the uniqueness of indigenous cow products, of panchagavya’s medicinal and health-related uses, its agricultural applications and its use as food, nutrition and utility products.