Odisha to move Centre for GI tag to Rasagola

Bhubaneswar: The iconic sweet Rasagola has once again found itself at the centre of a debate as to where it originated with Odisha deciding to seek a Geographical Indication (GI) tag for it before the Centre.

A high level meeting on chalking out the modalities to apply for the tag is scheduled today at conference hall of Directorate of Industries.

Earlier, the director of Industries had notified the secretaries of the department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Science and Technology department, MSME and Culture department to be present in the meeting.

An eight member panel set up by the State government will discuss the issue. The committee had earlier submitted its report to the State government in which it had cited several references to stake claim to the origin of the delicacy in Odisha.

Meanwhile, West Bengal government had already moved Chennai-based GI Registry - a wing of the Intellectual Property Office for the GI tag to the famous sweet.

Odisha government has also decided to set up a Rasgola cluster at Pahala with an estimated cost of about Rs 7.70 crore.