Bar coding for consumer products has been in use for the past 25 years worldwide and is now finding its increased acceptance in several industry segments. It is a series of parallel vertical lines that can be read by bar code scanners and is used worldwide as part of product packages, price tags, carton labels, on invoices and even in credit card bills. When it is read by scanners, a wealth of data is made available to the users. The bar code, an international concept, is unique and universal and can be recognized anywhere in the world. It facilitates product identification through using international numbering system, promotes brand image and enable timely and accurate capture of product information. The use of bar coding can have wide ranging benefits such as lowering of inventory costs, reduction in supply chain costs and hence overall reduced costs for products, increasing efficiency of industry and adherence to stringent quality assurance norms through product traceability. For the genuine manufacturers, bar coding ensures protection from the counterfeiters as the products can be traced back to the company through the system. Despite all the benefits of this technology, adoption of bar coding continues to be very slow in India including in critical sectors like pharmaceutical and food.
In the Indian pharmaceutical sector, even most of the large companies have not been very enthusiastic about using bar code for their products. Even top Indian companies like Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla and MNCs operating in the country have been rather reluctant to adopt bar coding. A few of these companies have adopted it for some of their products. This is despite the fact that the government has been discussing the need to adopt bar coding with industry bodies and encouraging its use with some policy initiatives in the past. The government had introduced certain schemes as early as January 2002 for medium and small and small scale units to adopt bar coding for their products. As per the scheme, micro and small manufacturing enterprises which have adopted bar code on or after Ist January, 2002 are eligible to get the financial assistance 75% of the one time registration fee. It was later decided that SSIs and tiny units which have registered for bar coding in the previous year would also be eligible for reimbursement of 75% of their one time registration fee. But, these schemes have not attracted most of the medium and small pharmaceutical units. Hardly, 20 medium scale units in the country have gone for bar coding so far. One of the main reasons for the poor response to the technology amongst small entrepreneurs is lack of awareness of its benefits and the ignorance of the government schemes. It is important, therefore, industry bodies and the concerned government departments should come forward and familiarize the technology amongst the medium and small scale units. For the drug control authorities in the country bar coding can be of great help to effectively track distribution of drugs in the marketplace and recall them if necessary. Therefore making bar coding mandatory for the pharmaceutical industry is an ideal option to check fake and counterfeit drugs.