Even the background papers floating around a couple of years before the news became public knowledge, the corridors in the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, also talked about the ministry pushing a proposal for it.
It was a few months after the Board was formed did one realize that the IGPB was nothing but the government chickening out and avoiding using wine in the name and was the new name for the National Wine Board. Obviously it was a ploy to keep the anti-alcohol lobby at bay.
And here lies the rub.
Unless our bureaucrats and politicians take the bull by the horn and delink wine from spirits and hard liquors, the growth in wine consumption will always be impeded, especially in so far as the government policies are concerned. It is ironic that Karnataka formed a Karnataka Wine Board a year or so earlier and one never heard any hullabaloo about the name. Apparently, the central government feels otherwise.
A senior colleague, Mr. Federico Castellucci, the Director General of the Paris based international organisation of Vines and Wine always tries to pacify me and reason with me by saying that there are a few OIV member countries in the middle east and Africa where people are generally anti alcohol. To circumvent the problem, their governments also avoid the use of ‘wine’ in their national boards.
Mystery Unraveled
The mystery about who helped cause the name change was unraveled last week at the Gaja winemaker dinner organised by the Gaja wines importer Brindco and Hotel Aman together during the recent visit of Gaia Gaja when I met Mr. Mani Shankar Iyer, the former member of Rajya Sabha, who was one of the invitees at the special event.
‘The general elections were approaching when one day Subodh (Mr. Subodh Kant Sahay, the then and now Honourable Minister of the Ministry of Food Processing Industry) told me about his dilemma of announcing the formation of the National Wine Board which had already been promised but the timing was a sensitive issue. He was apprehensive about forming the Board at that time, fearing a political backlash because of the word ‘wine’ in it- a risky decision just before the elections.’
‘That’s no problem, I told him. Just call it a grape processing board,’ and voilá- the Indian Grape Processing Board emerged – just as Mr. Castellucci had reasoned.
And business is as usual at the Karnataka Wine Board in Bangalore. I wonder if it was right for the government to buckle down and how far would it weigh down the working of the Board and its achievements. It would be nice if you share your views.
Subhash Arora |