Rasgulla row: Odisha to form committees to oppose Bengal's claim

To counter West Bengal's claim of inventing Rasgulla, the Odisha government has decided to form three committees to study the origin of the syrupy sweet.

"We are going to form three committees on Monday. One committee would collect the evidence; another would study basis of Bengal's claim and the third committee would collect the necessary papers to validate the state's claim. The committees are asked to finish the task within next seven days", Pradeep Kumar Panigrahy, minister of state, Science & Technology department, said.

The committees will comprise of officials from the culture and MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) departments.

The state government's move to claim the origin of sweet has come belatedly after the Science and Technology department of West Bengal started the process to approach its central counterpart for geographical indication (GI), an authentication process to identify Rasgulla with Bengal.

The GI of goods acts as the claim to fame for a state. It identifies a product as originating from a particular location and conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness that is essentially attributable to the fact of its origin.

The state MSME department has already roped in the Odisha Modernising Economy, Governance and Administration (OMEGA), a joint initiative of the state government and DFID (the Department for International Development of the UK) for studying the process of the preparation of the Rasugulla at Pahala in Khurda district.

While Odiyas believe that the Rasgulla originated in Puri and is offered to Lord Jagannath as a bhog for centuries, most food historians in West Bengal believe it was invented in then Calcutta in 1868 by iconic confectioner Nobin Chandra Das, whose son later founded the famous sweetmeat chain under the brandname K C Das.