A study on branding of handicraft through Geographic indication with reference to Kashmir

Handicraft activities occupy an important position in the economic structure of J&K State. Being environment friendly, these activities are best suited to the state as they are more labour intensive and less capital intensive in nature, thus having scope for employment generation at a large scale. The Kashmir handicraft products have earned worldwide fame for their attractive designs, functional utility and high quality craftsmanship. However this sector has suffered a lot due to unorganized market Lack of skilled workers new technology and absence of brand image. So in order to improve the production and branding of handicraft Geographical Indication is needed. Geographical Indication (GI) identifies a good/product as originating in a particular region, where a particular quality of the good is attributable to its place of origin. GI will help Jammu and Kashmir producers differentiate the uniqueness of the products from similar competing products, establish brand and goodwill of local products, fetch premium price for such products, and increase sales/export by protecting reputation of the products. The essence of GIs is that specific geographic locations yield product qualities that cannot be replicated elsewhere. GI-registered product is produced using the GI technology. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the status of the geographical indication in the state of Jammu and Kashmir as well as its prospect. The state has so far brought six of its ethnic and region specific products under geographical indication. All of these products belong to only one product category i.e. Handicrafts. The state has huge panorama of using geographical indication for its unique and famous ethnic and region specific products. However, lack of knowledge about intellectual property rights is not giving proper value and recognition to the geographical indication in the state.