After sterilization the explants were trimmed into leaf discs of ~0.3mm in diameter and placed with the abaxial side in contact with the medium For culturing the leaf discs, Murashige and Skoog basal medium supplemented with 3% (w/v) sucrose was used. It was fortified with different combinations (S1- S8) of auxin (IBA- Indole butyric acid) and cytokinin (BAP-N6-benzyladenine purine) which varies from 0 - 0.6mg/l and 1.0mg/l- 5.0mg/l respectively as detailed in Table 1. Agar at 0.8% (w/v) (Hi media, India) was used as solidifying agent. All experiments were carried out in culture tubes (150×25 mm) containing 20 ml of culture medium. The pH of media was adjusted to 5.7±0.1 prior to autoclaving at 121°C at 1.1kg sq.cm for 15 minutes Cultures were incubated under 16h/8h light/dark cycles at 23±2°C.