The Indian Government has announced deferment in the date of effect for implementation of bar-coding on primary level packaging on export consignment of pharmaceuticals and drugs, till July 2014.
According to the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade, the requirement of fixing barcodes on packaging previously was to take effect from 1 July 2013 and it has been postponed by one more year, PTI reported.
A barcode is helpful in tracking and tracing the origin of drugs.
Primary level packaging is the first-level product packaging such as the bottle, can, jar, tube that contains the item which is sold and is the last packaging thrown by the consumer.
Pharmaceutical companies are required to build track-and-trace capabilities for their exported medicines using barcode technology at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of packaging.
