Following the breakdown of talks between India and Pakistan over the joint registration of Basmati rice under the Geographical Indication (GI) regime for protecting its exclusivity, both the countries have now decided to first individually register the premium aromatic rice, before approaching the world market.
India?s Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), armed with Parliamentary power to obtain GI certification for agricultural or processed foods is gearing up to file the application with the registry.
In the absence of the GI, many private companies have been unsuccessfully trying to register their products as ?Basmati?, which commands premium in the global market. Since the past one year, India and Pakistan have initiated steps to register ?Basmati? under GI as joint heritage for protecting the variety?s premium market abroad.
However, due to sharp variations in the opinion on the definition of Basmati rice in India and Pakistan along with recent low in India?s relations with Pakistan led to a virtual collapse of communication between both the countries. The joint registration process also hit a roadblock when Pakistan allowed its farmers? organisation to register Basmati as a trademark in 2008.
A senior official with APEDA told FE that after the Parliamentary sanction, the authority is all set to file application for GI certification, which would give India statutory proprietary claim over the Basmati variety of rice.
The APEDA official also said that the authority has identified more than 300 instances of infringement of rights as far as the name ?Basmati? is concerned across 47 countries. Atleast 76 such cases has been settled in favour of India.
Basmati, an aromatic long-grain rice variety grown in the Gangetic plain in India and Pakistan, commands a premium price over other rice varieties in the global market.
However, Pakistan has consistently maintained that Basmati is a product that has historically originated from Pakistani region of the Punjab. After the registration of Basmati in both countries under the GI category, India and Pakistan need to register Basmati jointly at all key exports markets like the European Union and the Middle East region.
After the amendment to the APEDA Act was passed by Parliament, APEDA is now empowered to undertake measures for registration and protection of the intellectual property rights in respect of special products in and outside India.
India?s Basmati rice exports rose to Rs 3,548 crore during 2007-08 from Rs 2,482 crore achieved during the previous year. In terms of volume, the export of Basmati rice has gone up from 7.71 lakh tonne in 2003 to an estimated 1.5 million tonne in 2008. Pakistan also exports similar quantities of Basmati rice.