Hyderabad: In its efforts to market local products of the state, the Telangana government stepped up the efforts to get the Geographic Indication (GI) tags to four more products, apart from the existing 15 tags now for the state.
The Telangana IP Centre set up by the Telangana government and industry body CII, sought GI tag for chapata chilli (Warangal), turmeric (Nizamabad), lacquered bangles (Hyderabad) and custard apple (Balanagar).
Subhajit Saha, CII Telangana head and director told Telangana Today that the four products that are identified now have good market potential. “The GIs can be a key tool for the one district one product programme,” he said.
“Earlier, the thrust was to get the GI registration done. Now, the focus is on overcoming the challenges in marketing, branding, promotion and enforcement,” he said. There are also plans to set up an exclusive GI Store and GI museum in Hyderabad.
Pochampalli Ikat was the first GI for the State (erstwhile Andhra Pradesh) and fourth in the country. Out of the 15 GIs now, 12 have been filed by the Centre. Except for Hyderabad Haleem (which got the GI tag food) all are for handicrafts.
Application for one more product, red gram (Tandur), was filed last year. GI applications were earlier filed for Hyderabad Biryani and Hyderabad pearls. “Biryani was not pursued properly. It is now a generic product. For pearls, we do not have a history, which is mandatory for GI,” Saha said.