Geographical Indication or GI in simple language is kind of a patent or copyrights for any item in our country. It means that the Registrar of Geographical Indications in Chennai identifies that a thing such as food items, handicrafts, clothing line etc, belongs to a certain region after reviewing several aspects about the same.
Back in 2008, we people became familiar with the term Geo tag and GI because of Tirupathi Laddoo being confirmed as unique property of Tirumala Temple after winning a case at the Supreme Court. The latest addition to this list of GIs is our world-famous Banganapalli Mangoes. The Government of AP has been made the registered proprietor of these yummy mangoes just like the Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthaanam (TTD) has been made the proprietor for Tirupathi Laddoo.
Named after the village Banaganapalle in Kurnool district, the RGI department now identifies Banganapalle, Paanyam and Nandyal mandals as the places of origins and other regions of Rayalaseema and Andhra along with five other districts in Telangana as the secondary origin places of these tasty mangoes. It now means the people of AP have an official seal of approval that Banganapalli Mangoes belong to our land. The Government of AP is also planning to attach a sticker saying “Banganapalle Mangoes of Andhra Pradesh” to the mangoes just like we usually see with imported Apples.
Some other items that got the Geographical Indication as items belonging to Andhra Pradesh are Kondapalli Bommalu, Srikalahasti and Machilipatnam Kalamkari and our very own Guntur Mirchi.
