Bengal wins Rosogolla from Odisha

New Delhi: Ending controversy over the origin of the iconic sweet, West Bengal won the Geographical Indication for Rosogolla. This marked years of bitter tug of war between West Bengal and Odisha over the origin of the syrupy sweet. After media reports of Odisha’s claim to be the birth place of Rosogolla and following initiative to get a GI tag on the sweet, the Bengal government and sweet makers presented documents to prove them wrong.

“We are all so happy. It was a bitter fight. We provided documents to prove our claim that Rosogolla originated from Bengal. We also thank our chief minister, who after seeing media reports asked the government to apply for GI registration,” said Dhiman Das, executive director of K C Das Pvt Ltd and great grandson of Nabin Ch Das, who is said to have invented Rosogolla.

“This is great news. All of us who deal with sweets have been fighting for this along with the state government. We were surprised when Odisha laid claim to our Rosogolla. Rosogolla is synonymous to Bengalis and now it is proved,” said Sudip Mullick, proprietor of Balaram Mullick and Radharaman Mullick. A few years back a bitter tug of war broke out between West Bengal and Odisha after the latter claimed that Rosogolla originated from their state.

Odisha claimed to have ‘invented’ the sweet years back, associating it with centuries old ritual of Lord Jagannath. Odisha had applied for GI registration of the sweet and in 2016 also celebrated Rosogolla Divas. In Bengal the state government with help from the Das family and other sweet makers also applied for a patent on Rosogolla.

“We presented a lot of historic documents to prove that Rosogolla originated in Bengal. Odisha too tried their best,” said Das. Partha Chatterjee state education minister said, “unnecessary controversy was initiated, and a tug of war started for Rosogolla. But now the controversy ends. We are all so happy.”