GI tag for Nagpur orange, Dharmavaram saris

The juicy Nagpur orange, the famous tribal Warli art, Dharmavaram saris and Kerala’s Kaipad rice have been cleared for inclusion in Geographical Indications (GI) registry in the country. The logo for Leather Toys of Indore (already a GI product) was also approved.

These products, representing different geographical locations, were approved at a consultative expert meeting organised by Controller General of Patents at Hyderabad last Friday.

They will be notified after providing four months for the public to file its objections.

The Warli tribal art, representing the folklore of the Warli tribe, is mostly practised by women and has become popular among the art connoisseurs in recent times.

The famous saris coming from Dharmavaram, a weaving cluster in Ananthpur of Andhra Pradesh, have been described by the Andhra Pradesh Weavers Cooperative Society Ltd. as saris with broad solid colour borders with contrast pallu s woven with brocaded gold patterns. Kaipad rice is the system of paddy cultivation in brackish water.

“The four products approved in the meeting were among the 12 that were taken up for deliberations since they conformed to the norms. The deliberations on others would be taken up again after documents required for GI notification is provided by the applicants,” Chinnaraja G. Naidu, the Assistant Registrar of the Geographical Indications Registry, told

The Hindu .

Currently, 187 Indian products/agriculture crops and six foreign products, mostly liquor, have entered the GI registry. With the addition of four more, the number is set to increase to 191.

Darjeeling tea was the first to be recognised for GI in India in 2003. According to Mr. Naidu, a total of 432 applications, including 131 from foreign countries, had been received so far, of which seven have been rejected.