New Delhi: The Government of India has increased the deadline for affixing barcodes on primary level packaging of pharma products July 2014. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said that earlier the requirement of affixing barcodes on primary level packaging was to take effect from July 1, 2013, but now this date has been deferred to July 1, 2014.

The government asked pharmaceutical companies to build track and trace capability for their exported medicines using barcode technology 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. A barcode helps in tracking and tracing of origin of drugs, which in turn helps in minimizing the chances of genuine drugs being considered fake or counterfeit.