Bhubaneswar: The state government has constituted an eight-member committee to finalise the process to claim Geographical Indication (GI) status for sweetmeat Rasagola.
The Directorate of Industries here Tuesday decided to form the GI panel with Industry Director at the helm of it.
The committee will have two members from Science & Technology department, one from Industry, Culture, Agriculture departments and OUAT each who will look into the process to seek GI status for Rasagola.
The additional director of Industry department has been appointed as the convener of the committee. Orissa has been engaged in a contest with its neighbour West Bengal for patent rights over the sweetmeat for two years. The Bengal government has already applied for GI status for the sweet to the National Biodiversity Authority claiming that Rasagola had originated in that state.
A panel set up by the state government earlier had submitted its report citing several references to stake claim to the origin of the delicacy in Orissa.
Meanwhile, the state has also decided to set up a Rasgola cluster at Pahala for which it has allocated `7.70 crore.
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