GI Mahotsav-3.0 in Mysuru celebrates India's GI heritage at CFTRI

Four day event is packed with Expo of GI products; expert sessions to safeguard them.

Mysuru: Even as India has recognised 697 GI products including 46 from Karnataka, Government of India aims at regongition of 10,000 GI products by 2030. In order to promote recognition of more GI products, to empower the communities that safeguard them, four day GI-Mahotsav-3.0 began at CSIR-CFTRI campus in Mysuru on Friday.

An initiative of the Ministry of MSME, the third edition of Mahotsav also aims at celebrating, protecting and promoting India's rich heritage through GI products. It is packed with an expo of about 50 GI products (from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu); technical sessions about recognising safeguarding GI products and cultural events reflecting regional art, culture and tradition.

It is organised by Madurai Agri Business Incubation Forum (MABIF), in collaboration with the Union Ministry of MSME, NABARD, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) and CSIR–CFTRI.

Dr Giridhar Parvatam, director, CSIR-CFTRI informed that CFTRI is playing a pivotal role in facilitating recognition of GI products, by analysing their value and uniqueness. Among 697 GI products, 140 are food products. So they are even developing technologies for value-added attractive products out of GI tagged crops like flavoured juice with Mysore betel leaves and so on.

Dr P P Mahendran, Dean, AC and RI, TNAU campus Madurai, said that GI Mahotsav is a movement to protect the living heritage-the GI products-the unique creations, shaped by traditional knowledge, skill, and regional practices. GoI has taken several initiatives to empower agri-entrepreneurs towards their sustained livelihood, by promoting their unique regional cultural identity by bridging traditional knowledge excellence with modern innovations. They are measures to empower agri entrepreneurs, farmers, start ups, with end to end support that transforms ideas into scalable market ready enterprises, from incubation to value addition besides consumer awareness.

Dr E Somasundaram, director DABD TNAU, Coimbatore said that GI products are India's pride. There is a huge scope for food tourism as people love authentic GI tagged food with superior taste like Dharwad peda, Hyderabad Biryani. Tamil Nadu is already promoting Agro food based tourism. So the GoI is taking initiatives to enhance the economic prosperity of farmers and improve their standard of life by promoting their GI products in national and international export markets and help them get the premium price the products deserve.

K Ganesh Moorthy, ED and CEO NABARD-MABIF said that all the States are taking initiatives to enhance the number of registered GI products. MABIF Intellectual property facilitation centre at AC and RI TNAU campus, Madurai has facilitated for registration of 72 GI products in Tamil Nadu and 15 has been granted.

Ashithosh Inamdar, Chief Scientist CSIR-CFTRI; Dr D Usha Rani, Senior Principal Scientist, CSIR-CFTRI; Dr S Senthil Vinayagam, Director, IIPM were present.