A $20 million yoga and ayurveda research centre, the first outside India that has been modeled after Baba Ramdev's Pathanjali Yog Peeth in Haridwar, was consecrated in Rosenberg, Texas, this month with the yoga guru presiding over the consecration ceremony.

At a blooming cotton field in Rosenberg, Fort Bend County, about 25 miles from Houston, Ramdev and his associates chanted ancient Vedic hymns amid lighting of the holy fire as he sanctified the 94-acre ground for the proposed centre.

Ramdev said he envisions a "yoga revolution" in the western world with the establishment of the centre where India's culture and tradition, yoga and ayurveda, will thrive and help Americans to get treatment and cure for illness.

"There are as many as 30 per cent people in the US who cannot afford medical treatment because of the cost. Our aim at this centre would be to treat and cure such people through yoga and traditional Indian medical system," Ramdev told rediff.com a day after the consecration ceremony.

By his own admission he has cured millions of people in India of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, obesity, arthritis and other stress-related diseases solely through yoga, and he hoped to do the same in the United States.

He said while the centre would have trained teachers, he would visit Texas at least twice a year. "Besides clinical trials, scientific study and genetic research, we will promote evidence-based research of traditional medicine here," he said.

Ramdev said he is planning to come up with smaller centres all over America. "In India we are planning to come up with small centres in 600,000 villages to provide treatment to people. We will replicate that model in the US although on a much smaller scale," he said. Both in his public lectures and in the interview, Ramdev promised to create a 'disease-free world.'

"Unlike other yoga practitioners, I have tried to promote pranayam and meditation-based yoga and not exercise-based yoga, which only leads to flexibility and fitness of the body but cannot cure diseases. That is where I make a big difference," Ramdev said in the interview over telephone after the ceremony in Texas.

The centre is expected to be functional within two years, but Ramdev said it would be wonderful if it is ready to open the same day next year, he said.

Ramesh Bhutada and Shekhar Agrawal of Sugar Land, who are among those who initiated the plan for the yoga centre in Houston, hoped they could meet that shorter deadline.

Vijay Pallod, a community leader, said the initial plan for the construction of the centre was to come up with a small $4.5 million center. "After Swamiji visited the land, saw the environment, the volunteer base and the financial support from the local community the plan got changed for a $20 million centre. In five days we have raised $5 million, which is a record of sorts," Pallod told rediff.com.

Bhutada, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh south zone president, said the Indian-American community is very fortunate that Swami Ramdev has decided to set up his first major centre outside of India in Houston, Texas, which will eventually have all the facilities offered in Haridwar, including a gurukul for children's education, university and research facility.

Pallod said that both Orlando businessmen Braham Agarwal, chairman of Ekal Foundation, and Houston-based Jugal Malan, the foundation's director, gave a million dollars apiece.

A host of other donors, including Brij Mohan Agarwal, Shekhar Agarwal , Hari Agarwal, Vishnu Gupta, Durga Agarwal, Navin Bhargava, and Jai Prakash Agarwal, each contributed between $100,000 and $250,000. Pallod said. Bhagwanji Gambhir from Florida [Images] donated $500,000 for the centre.

Prior to visiting Houston, Ramdev conducted his first-ever yoga workshop in Los Angeles. Hundreds of people, including many Americans, attended the five-day camp from July 9 at the Anaheim Convention Center. More than 2,000 attended it on the last day.

During a visit to South Brunswick, New Jersey, as part of his coast-to-coast visit that included Washington as well, Ramdev blessed a 'Mini Forest' project sponsored by the Tathaastu group of New Jersey. The project aims to create areas of green, primarily in industrialised areas or places where forests and greenery is sparse.

While there are millions of followers of Ramdev, there have been critics, including Communist Party of India-Marxist MP Brinda Karat who had alleged that medicines produced at Ramdev's facility in Haridwar were contaminated.

Asked to comment, Ramdev said he is not bothered by criticisms. "I doing my work which is to acquaint people with truth and knowledge and the critics are doing their job -- to criticise. I have no problem at all with that," he said.