India-Pak joint registration of basmati hits delay again

After Pakistan allowing its rice growers’ organisation to register basmati under the trademark, the process of joint registration of basmati rice by India and Pakistan under the Geographical Indications (GI) as a joint heritage has hit a road block again.

The two countries had held a series of meetings in the past few years to remove hindrances on the way to the joint registration of basmati under GI for protecting intellectual property rights, which command a huge premium in global market. Trade officials from both the countries were to hold a meeting this month.

However, an Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) official told FE that the there was simply no communication between both the countries in this regard.

Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for commerce, also recently said that a meeting of the joint working group for registration of GI was to be held in Islamabad this month as Pakistan had suggested that 2009 be observed as the ‘Year of Basmati.’

Meanwhile, APEDA is going ahead with the domestic registration of basmati under the GI while Pakistan is yet to formulate a domestic GI act as mandated under the TRIPS.

Earlier, Pakistan had granted a trade mark to the Basmati Growers Association (BGA), investing it with the claim of exclusivity, even as India and Pakistan had earlier agreed to jointly bid for a GI for basmati.

The registrar of trade mark, Karachi, while granting the TM on BGA, has set aside the opposition from APEDA through its legal council. APEDA had offered to jointly register basmati under GI along with Rice Exporters’ Association of Pakistan, which was rejected by Pakistan government. India has recently moved the Sindh high court opposing the move.

APEDA official also said that there were many domestic issues in Pakistan which were to be resolved first before both the countries went ahead with joint registration process.

In the absence of GI, many private companies have been unsuccessfully trying to register their products as ‘basmati’. RiceTec Inc, a US-based company, was granted a patent in September 1997 on basmati rice grains and lines which India had challenged. The RiceTec Inc was forced to withdraw its claim. Basmati, an aromatic long-grain rice variety grown in the Gangetic plains in India and Pakistan commands a premium price over other rice varieties in the international market. India’s basmati rice exports have been rising consistently since last one decade. The exports from India rose to Rs 3,548 crore during 2007-08 from Rs 2,482 crore achieved in 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 1.4 million tonne in 2008.