what is GI tag and benefits of Geographical Indication: India’s global ‘brand recall’ and attributes of multi-cultural ethos, authenticity and ethnic diversity can become important catalysts or ‘turbochargers’ for the country’s economy.
Many experts see ‘Geographical Indications‘ or GI tags as a channel through which these characteristics can be made more important.
Currently, these products can be significant revenue generators with an emphasis on climate change and sustainability.
India’s strong e-commerce sector has a modern distribution system, which can help the GI industry, which is in its infancy, to grow nationally and globally.
Benefits of GI Tag (Potential)
Benefits to local communities: Widespread positive benefits can be provided to local communities through GI conservation.
It especially encourages conservation of biodiversity, local experiences/information and natural resources and through this India can also improve its economic condition.
Economic and ‘soft’ power: A strong GI ecosystem brings many benefits, which can be direct sources of economic and ‘soft’ power.
It can primarily solve three of India’s complex problems—low wages for talented people, low female participation in the labor force, and urban migration.
It will convert talent into entrepreneurship with “Gig Workers” and create a “Passion Economy” – i.e. monetization of skills of individuals – and new opportunities to grow their businesses faster.
It also removes barriers related to freelance work to earn regular income from sources other than an employer.
Increase in Employment-Population Ratio: The labour-intensive nature of GI provides the best solution to boost the employment-population ratio in India, which currently stands at just 43% as against the global average of 55%.
Monetization of home-made craft work will improve the low female labor force participation rate in India, which was just 21% in 2019 (far below the global average of 47%).
‘Reverse Urban Migration‘: The hyper-localized nature of GI offers a solution for reversing urban migration and preserving India’s ancient crafts, culture and food.
This will also rejuvenate the MSMEs sector which accounts for 31% of India’s GDP and 45% of its exports.
An estimated 55.80 million MSMEs provide employment to about 130 million people; Of these, 14% of enterprises are led by women and 59.5% are in rural areas.
GI tourism, which is essentially a by-product of a strong GI ecosystem, can also play a significant role in this direction.
GI tag and Digital Commerce
Amazon’s ‘Local-to-Global’ program has brought Indian producers and their products, such as leather from Delta Leather Corporation and organic products from SVA Organics, to 18 global markets in over 200 countries, resulting in The demand for the products and the size of the company has increased up to 300 times.
Between 2019 and 2021, Amazon has exported such ‘Made in India’ products worth more than $2 billion.
GI products need the support of governments in the initial stage. Significantly, the European Union currently has a GI economy worth US$87 billion. China has also performed well in the GI sector, where e-commerce has been strengthened in rural areas and agricultural specific product brands are actively promoted in underdeveloped areas.
Various studies show that patent and copyright protection of products under GI results in higher economic returns, while promoting quality production.
Drawbacks and challenges of the GI Tag (area)
The potential of the GI sector in India is yet to be realized as efforts so far have mainly focused on the first stage of GI filing.
Filing a GI application is an extremely complex task, which involves documenting historical evidence about the product’s affiliation with the sector, as well as requiring that the application be filed by an association or group of individuals.
Due to limited awareness of GI among producers, consumers and policy makers in the country, little effort has been made in terms of using GI certification as a marketing/branding tool to benefit producers in the case of most registered products. went.
Way Ahead
Capacity Building: Since GI businesses are micro in nature, they need to address the challenges of capacity building, access to formal or easy credit, R&D, product innovation and competitiveness in both domestic and international markets.
Necessary.
The groundwork for MSMEs’ access to formal credit has already been laid with the new ‘Account Aggregator‘ data-sharing framework.
Need to move to digital platform: At present the issue of intermediaries controlling the entire system is also quite challenging. With the move towards digital platforms, the distribution margins of these ‘gatekeepers’ or ‘mandi agents’ should also be competitive, so that they do not act as countervailing or countervailing agents by joining similar businesses or product lines, as this would again Will further reduce the income related to GI products.
As can be seen from the experience of the new agricultural laws, this will be a difficult task for the central and state governments; They should ensure the transition without breaking too many existing links.
Local GI Cooperative Bodies: Local GI cooperative bodies or associations should be set up, which can be managed at the national level by a GI Board under the aegis of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry. And these GI cooperative bodies should be tasked to develop this new sector.
Spreading Digital Literacy: ‘Digital Literacy’ is an essential skill for GI producers. This should be a priority agenda for NGOs and stakeholders like DPIIT.
This is an opportunity for India to build a better future using automation, technology and artificial intelligence and to grow and enrich the country’s talented local workforce.
Conclusion
Indian GI Economy can be an important platform for the country, through which the model of ethical capitalism, social entrepreneurship, de-urbanization and inclusion of women in the workforce on the strength of a strong digital system is presented to the world. can be done. This will be the real ‘Made in India‘.
