New Delhi, Apr 13 (KNN) India’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has pushed back the deadline for adopting bar codes on primary level packaging on export consignments of pharmaceuticals and drugs for tracking and tracing them, by one year.

A barcode helps in tracking and tracing the origin of drugs, which in turn helps in minimising the chances of genuine drugs being considered falsified, sub-standard or counterfeit.

“Earlier the requirement of affixing barcodes on primary level packaging was to take effect from 01.07.2013.  Now this date has been deferred to 01.07.2014,” Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a public notice.

The secondary and tertiary packages are already required to use barcodes.

The government had asked pharmaceutical companies to use barcode technology to track and trace exported medicines at three levels of packaging - primary, secondary and tertiary.

Primary level packaging is the first-level product packaging such as the bottle, can, jar, tube, that contains the item sold.

India exports over USD 10 billion worth of drugs annually.

According to the experts, by affixing bar codes, the Pharmaceutical companies can ensure quality which in turn will boost export. (KNN)