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The Ministry of MSME and DPIIT signed an MoU on 5 August 2026 at Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi, to commercialise India's Geographical Indication products.
GI collectives and authorised users will be onboarded onto ONDC and GeM under a dedicated 'Bharat GI' banner.
DPIIT is the nodal department for GI registration under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.
The two will co-sponsor GI Pavilions at national and international trade expos and buyer-seller meets.
A separate Lok Sabha reply detailed how GI-tagged Kala Namak rice raised farmer numbers from 2,915 in 2018 to 23,000 in 2024.
A Geographical Indication is a form of intellectual property attached to a place rather than to a person or a company. It identifies goods whose quality, reputation or other characteristic is essentially attributable to their geographical origin — Darjeeling tea, Kanchipuram silk, Kala Namak rice. Unlike a trademark, which one enterprise owns, a GI is held collectively: any authorised producer within the defined region who follows the specification may use it. In India the GI Registry functions under the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks at Chennai, registration lasts ten years and is renewable, and the international basis for such protection lies in the TRIPS Agreement of the World Trade Organization.
Simple Analogy: A postcode that guarantees authenticity — anyone inside it who follows the recipe may use the name, and nobody outside it may.
Nodal department for registration and legal protection of Geographical Indications; also runs ODOP and the ONDC initiative
An open protocol enabling interoperable e-commerce, so a seller on one app is discoverable by buyers on another
The national public procurement portal through which government departments buy goods and services
Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority — facilitates export of Kala Namak rice to markets such as Singapore and Nepal and runs the Agri-Export Zone framework
Registers plant varieties and farmers' land races; more than 1,700 rice land races registered
Kala Namak is marketed as Buddha Rice to target high-value markets in Buddhist countries — Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Myanmar — an example of cultural association used as an export strategy
A Common Facility Centre for Kala Namak rice was established in Siddharthnagar under ODOP, providing processing, packaging and export-support facilities
Articles 22 to 24 of TRIPS provide the international framework for GI protection, which India's 1999 Act gives domestic effect to
GS Paper 3 > Indian Economy > Intellectual Property Rights and Agricultural Marketing
General Awareness > Economy and GI Products
General Awareness > Schemes and Trade
GI products appear almost every cycle in UPSC Prelims and SSC General Awareness.
An intellectual property right identifying goods whose quality or reputation is attributable to their geographical origin; held collectively by producers of the region
Open Network for Digital Commerce — an open protocol making e-commerce interoperable across apps
One District One Product — the programme identifying and promoting a signature product from each district
PM Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises — provides credit-linked capital subsidy up to 35%, capped at Rs 10 lakh
The WTO agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, whose Articles 22-24 cover Geographical Indications