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Synopsis Medicinal herbs are the local heritage with global importance. World is endowed with a rich wealth of medicinal herbs. The variety and sheer number of plants with therapeutic properties is quite astonishing. Medicinal herbs have curative properties due to presence of various complex chemical substance of different composition, which are found as secondary plant metabolites in one or more parts of these plants. These plant metabolites according to their composition, are grouped as alkaloids, glycosides, corticosteroids, essential oils etc. During the past decade, a dramatic increase in exports of medicinal herbs attests to worldwide interest in these products as well as in traditional health systems. The pharmaceutical industries have made massive investment on pharmacological, clinical and chemical researches all over the world in past five decades. Efforts have been made to discover still more potent plant drugs. The benefits of these efforts would reach to the masses in future in farmers initiate commercial cultivation of medicinal herbs. In fact, agricultural studies on medicinal herbs, but its very nature, demand an equally large investment and higher priority. India, in particular, has a big scope for the development of pharmaceutical and phytochemical industry.