A commemorative postage stamp on the Medicinal Plants of Pakistan : Banafsa / Banafsha / Banaksa (wood violet / sweet violet / English violet / common violet / florist’s violet / garden violet) :

Issued by Pakistan

Issued on Nov 22, 1992

Issued for : To mark the occasion Pakistan Post is issuing a special postage stamp of Rs. 6/- denomination on November 22, 1992.

Designer : Syed Ali Afsar (PSPC)

Type : Stamp, Postal Used

Denomination : Rs. 6/-

Colours : Multi colour

Size of stamp : 44.5 x 32.5 mm

Size of print : 40.5 x 28.5 mm

Perforation : 13 C

Paper : 102 gms dual purpose coated PVA gum

Quantity : Two million

Number of stamps in a sheet : 28 (7 x 4 rows)

Process of printing : Litho Offset

Printers : Pakistan Security Printing Corporation

About : 

• Pakistan is endowed with the wealth of medicinal plants. These are the natural botanical source of medicines being manufactured by indigenous pharmaceutical houses in Pakistan. These are also the basic source of modern pharmaceutical market, although today it has become an entire medical world of synthetics, with elevated prices a common man can not afford. It is therefore the most appropriate time to consider development and organization of our medicinal plants industry to become independent in the provision of common indigenous natural drugs that are being used to treat diseases in most of our rural areas. In our country there are grown wild or cultivated medicinal plants species which possess great potentialities not in the light of their use from centuries in the sub-continent in Greco-Arab (Unani or Eastern) system of medicine but also in the light of active principles or bio-dynamic compounds being isolated from them using ultra modern screening techniques available in our country.
• Viola odorata Linn. Banafsha/Violet. It is included in family Violaceae as a glabrous or pubescent perennial herb found in Kashmir and temperate western Himalayas often in mountains above 5000 ft. Leaves, roots and flowers are used in Unani medicine for bilious affections, lung troubles, cough, kidney diseases and liver affections. The herb keeps overall expectorant, diaphoretic, antipyretic and diuretic activities and as laxative in bilious affections. With other herbs useful in catarrhal and pulmonary affections.
• (Contributed by : Director Research & Bait al-Hikmat, Hamdard, Karachi).
  
• Issued by : Head Quarters, Pakistan Postal Services Corporation (Pakistan Post), Islamabad-44000. 

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