One reason for the founding of the All India Coordinated Research Project on Ethnobiology (AICRPE) was to protect the interests of the indigenous tribal people. As a result of the discovery of arogyappacha plant and its unusual benefit to humans, the Kani tribe was awarded the intellectual property rights to profit from its development. With this precedent, the Indian government and the AICRPE hoped to stem the piracy of tribal knowledge by commercial interests.

There was an agreement with the Kani tribe to receive half of the $50,000 fee paid by the Arya Vaidya Pharmacy (AVP) to the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) for the development of Jeevani and the technology to mass produce it. Jeevani is a product of the arogyappacha plant. Later it was completely ignored and went off record.