Brand Ramdev: From DVDs to multi-grain flour

The products sold online as well as shops under the name of Patanjali Yoga Peeth are offering a whole spectrum of lifestyle improvement products including extracts of herbs, aphrodisiacs, flour, medicines and popular DVDs of yoga especially designed for people with specific problems. Ramdev today said that his medicines and extracts, claimed to cure diseases such as diabetes, blood pressure, digestive problems, are much cheaper than those by companies which are in business for the past 100-150 years.

The 46-year-old yoga exponent has hugely popularised products such as aloevera juice, shilajit, floor of nine grains. Patanjali Yogpeeth's says a single unit installed at the ashram has the capacity of extracting from 10,000 kg of raw herbs.

One of the negotiators with Ramdev during his protests at Ramlila Maidan, Union Minister Subodh Kant Sahay had laid the foundation stone of a herbal and organic food park spread over 95 hectares here. Ramdev had set up his first ayurvedic medicine counter "Brahamkalp Chikitsalaya" here in 1995. The Patanjali Yogpeeth claims about 50 varieties of medicines made of herbs are sold across shops run by his trusts.

But Ramdev's business created controversy five years ago when reports claimed that some of his medicines use bone extracts but the matter was not probed.