New Delhi, Jan 4 Union health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad inaugurated the Patanjali Ayurveda College owned by yoga guru Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth and Divya Yog Mandir Trust in Hardwar Monday.

The college will offer degree courses in Ayurvedic medicine and carry out advanced research in herbal therapies and diagnosis of rare diseases.

“We will start with 50 students, who will be taught how to make herbal medicines, diagnose diseases according to Ayurvedic traditions and select medicinal herbs. The fact that we already have a health infrastructure with provision for 400 internal patients and an outpatients department catering to nearly 1,000 people every day will help. The college will be run in compliance with government norms,” Acharya Balkrishnaji, vice-chancellor of the college and co-founder of Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust and Divya Yog Mandir, told IANS from Hardwar.

The seer said the “objective behind the hospital was to combine modern medical science with the ancient Ayurvedic medicine in India”.

“We have state-of-the-art equipment, better than many hospitals in the country,” the vice-chancellor said.

Union food processing minister Subodh Kant Sahay – along with 13 chief ministers from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Sikkim – will inaugurate a herbal and organic food park spread over 95 acres in Hardwar.

“The Rs.500-crore food park will manufacture aloe vera, amla (Indian goosebery), citrus fruits, vegetable and herbal juices and extracts. It will also process 150 tonnes of cereals rich in calcium and iron every day. The park will provide employment to 30,000 people and benefit hundreds of thousands of farmers who will be ensured fair price for their produce,” a spokesperson for Patanjali Yogpeeth said.

The organisation, which is billing the park as one of the largest natural processed food zones in the world, has entered into an agreement with Uttarakhand and Punjab to source raw material from farmers.