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Geographical Indications
A Geographical Indication protects a place rather than a person, and India's argument now is about who inside that place gets the benefit. Most registered tags have no producer lawfully entitled to sell under them, the tribunal that heard disputes was abolished in 2021, and very little of the premium a tag earns reaches the farmer who grew the crop.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2019: the Intellectual Property Appellate Board and plant variety protection
- Prelims 2018: why India enacted the Geographical Indications Act, 1999
- Prelims 2015: which products hold Geographical Indication status
Who holds a Geographical Indication
- A Geographical Indication (GI) is registered to a region, so a producers' body or a market committee holds it rather than any one grower.
- An application may be opposed within three months of its advertisement under the Act.
Where the regime is weak
- India has 724 registered GIs, and only 42 per cent of them have any authorised user at all.
- The Intellectual Property Appellate Board was abolished in 2021, so GI disputes now go to slow civil courts.
- About 40 million kg of counterfeit Darjeeling tea is sold worldwide, roughly ten times actual production.
- Only 10 to 15 per cent of the price premium a GI earns reaches farmers.
What has happened
11 Aug 2026
A column argued that the regime protects the place but not the producer, after GI tags for Unjha jeera (cumin) and saunf (fennel) went to a Gujarat market committee in early 2026.
- Rajasthan's cumin farmers say language and access barriers kept them from objecting in time.
- It proposes state enforcement cells, online monitoring, producer collectives and benefit-sharing on the European Union model.