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G. Srinivasan

New Delhi, Aug 18 The Rs 6,000-crore basmati rice export industry appears to be in the throes of trouble as it is beset by a slew of adverse developments, both domestic and external, that threaten to cloud its immediate future prospects.

Externally, the setback surfaced in the form of a grant of Trade Mark by the Pakistan authorities to the Basmati Growers Association (BGA), investing it with the claim of exclusivity, even as India and Pakistan have agreed to jointly bid for a geographic indication (GI) to the basmati. The Registrar of Trade Mark, Karachi, while granting the TM on BGA, has set aside the opposition of India’s Agricultural and Processed Food Product Export Development Authority (APEDA).

Islamabad is also reluctant to accept the Indian offer of joint registration of basmati as GI with Rice Exporters’ Association of Pakistan sending a legal notice to India’s commerce ministry for notifying ‘super basmati’, a variety Pakistan alleged that India usurped from it.

Trade policy analysts told Business Line that APEDA is unable to register basmati rice as GI in view of extant ambiguity in the APEDA Act which confines the Authority to undertake activities relevant to exports only. But the owner of GI is required to regulate the domestic market, which APEDA does not have the remit to do.

Since APEDA has been working for a decade or so to protect the basmati rice through legal cases abroad and within, the Department of Commerce piloted an amendment to the APEDA Act through a bill some time ago to enlarge its remit but the Bill lapsed for want of consideration and passage by Parliament.

Official sources said while the Department of Commerce could bring an ordinance to let APEDA register basmati rice as GI, pending the relevant Bill’s introduction and passage in the forthcoming session of Parliament, there is a snag in States such as Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka have started growing basmati paddy in their States.

Since GI postulates geographic area which is clearly defined as the Himalayan foothill in the case of basmati, the newly-growing basmati paddy States would find them excluded, affecting their agrarian, political and commercial interests.

Meanwhile, following the trade mark registration of basmati by Pakistan, it was decided at a recent meeting on GI in the Department of Commerce that APEDA and its legal advisers on GI would propose a minimum definition of basmati rice to the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) for the purpose of GI. This needs to be viewed against the recent office memorandum by the latter on May 29, 2008 which clearly expanded the definition by including in the family history (genealogy) a basmati variety (traditional or evolved) notified under the Seed Act 1966 to pass basmati quality genes into the new evolved varieties.

The DAC definition seeks to establish that all varieties of basmati rice notified as basmati rice and any future variety notified as basmati will be construed to be basmati rice.

Whether evolved varieties, not duly reflecting the geographical area in which they are reaped and sui generis to the geography would also find acceptance abroad as GI variety or not needs to be looked into.

The Department of Commerce was on record that whatever definition the Agriculture Ministry comes out with, it would accept, following the denial of approval by the DAC under the Seed Act 1966 to super basmati approved by the Export Inspection Council of the Commerce Ministry a couple of years ago.

Trade sources are baffled that if the present definition of basmati rice of the DAC does not conform to GI norms and if the new minimum definition of APEDA attempts to exclude evolved varieties such as Pusa 1121 for which it has always been resistant, it would open the sluice gate of resentment from evolved variety basmati rice growing States like Haryana and Punjab or the new entrants like Rajasthan, MP and Karnataka.

Since a considerable chunk of India’s present basmati bouquet consists of mostly Pusa 1121 variety (60-70 per cent) and since the Chief Ministers of both Punjab and Haryana have openly pleaded for inclusion of Pusa 1121 in basmati definition to safeguard their agrarian and rural interests, any bid to preclude the evolved variety in the minimum definition would invite maximum outcry and political overtones as being anti-farmers. It would be expedient, sources said, that the authorities reckon all these factors and their implications before zeroing in on any solution that safeguard the interests of all stakeholders in the basmati rice industry, including the growers.

More Stories on : Rice | Exports & Imports

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