PPV & FRA Awareness Programme organised by Seedsmen Association, Hyderabad

Seedsmen Association, Hyderabad organised an “Awareness/Interaction Meeting on PPV & FRA” on 5th March 2020. About 100 participants including representatives of different seed companies and MSc & PhD students of PJTSAU, Hyderabad participated in the day long event. The representatives of PPV & FRA, New Delhi, Dr K. V. Prabhu, Chairperson, Dr. T. K. Nagarathna, Registrar, and Dr. Dipal Roy Choudhury, Joint Registrar attended the meeting, made presentations, and clarified the doubts of the participating seedsmen on different clauses and provisions of PPV & FR Act, 2001.
President to of the Seedsmen Association, Hyderabad Shri Yaganti Venkateswarlu welcomed the dignitaries from PPV & FRA and the participants of the meeting. He informed the audience briefly about the SMA, its membership, and its activities. He thanked the PPV & FRA Representatives for their keen interest in helping the seedsmen gain clarity of the Act and become aware of the processes and procedures to be followed for registering the plant varieties with PPV & FRA.
Dr K. V. Prabhu, The Chairperson of PPV & FRA made a presentation on ”Current status of Operations at PPV & FRA.” He gave a general view of the importance of intellectual property rights and the benefits of registering the plant varieties with PPV & FRA. He informed that the number of applications for registration significantly increased during the last few years. He also indicated that the Authority is unbiased and stated that the procedure & system of registration is same for all types of applicants including those from private sector or public sector or the farmers, except for the fee structure. He also highlighted that total confidentiality is practised at PPV & FRA and the coding system is designed in such a way that even the regulators would not know whose variety it is and whose parental lines they are when they are sent out for testing.
Dr. T. K. Nagarathna, Registrar, PPV & FRA made a presentation on “New procedure for protection of plant varieties and recent initiatives at PPV & FRA.” She detailed the 10-step process making the participants understand clearly about the plant variety registration process. She talked about “DUS Testing of Hybrids and Parental Lines” also. She informed that, as per the present system, the DUS testing of parental lines is also mandatory along with the hybrids being submitted for registration.
Dr Dipal Roy Choudhury, Joint Registrar, PPV & FRA helped the participants learn with specific reference to DUS testing in Rice. He gave the list of DUS Centres for rice and cotton. He explained in detail how the Distinctiveness is evaluated and the Uniformity and Stability are examined. He gave some examples of grouping characters in rice for DUS testing.
There was an active Q & A session in which the participants raised a number of questions and the Chairperson of PPV & FRA Dr K. V. Prabhu and his team patiently responded to each and every question and clarified their doubts.
The meeting was closed with the word of thanks by the secretary of SMA, Shri S. R. Jayaveer. He thanked the dignitaries from PPV & FRA for their sparing their time and providing valuable guidance to the members of the SMA. He also appreciated the active participation of the members and thanked them.