The second controls blood pressure and the last two are for male and among the biggest repositories of tried, tested and trusted remedies.

Interestingly, Acharya's first brush with a tribal healer was as a critically ill eight-year-old. Acharya's father, an impoverished government servant, could neither afford expensive surgery nor medical treatment. The tribal healer saved the child from certain death and triggered in him an insatiable curiosity about their practices and formulations.

It took the young scientist over 10 years to identify, document and build a data base of thousands of traditional remedies, while pursuing his masters and doctoral studies. For this pioneering contribution, he bagged the Young Scientist Award in 2003.

Acharya, a PhD in botany from Sagar University in Madhya Pradesh, pointed out that developing a single drug costs $1.5 billion (Rs.7,000 crore) and takes 15 to 20 years. Why not involve the healers in creating such formulations, at a tiny fraction of the cost and time, reasoned Acharya, making them accessible to millions.

'One way of doing it was by co-opting bhumkas and bhagats (traditional healers) through reverse integration, to cultivate raw material required for product formulation, so that they develop a stake in protecting our forests and biodiversity and preserving their knowledge base,' Acharya told IANS.

The result was Abhumka Herbals. He is optimistic about the future of Abhumka Herbals and is hoping his start-up - the first of its kind in India-achieves its projected turnover of Rs.100 crore within the next three years.

The world herbal medicine market is worth a staggering $70 billion today, of which China's share alone is 13 percent while India accounts for a measly 2.5 percent, with our tribal medicines being nowhere in the picture yet, said Acharya.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the global population, including rural India, relies on traditional medicines because of easy accessibility.

(Shudip Talukdar can be contacted at shudip.t@ians.in)