The Authentication Solution Providers’ Association (ASPA) today announced the extension of its industry and consumer centric “Make Sure India” campaign to Maharashtra, to educate and enable brand owners to understand the benefits and importance of in various sectors, thus protecting the lives of consumers, reputation of brands and revenue of brand owners in the country. Today, its member companies are already protecting more than 10,000 brands globally.

ASPA is the world’s first and only self-regulated non-profit organisation that represents the entire authentication solutions industry globally.

On this occasion Arun Agarwal, general secretary, ASPA said, “Product counterfeiting has become a menace badly affecting Indian industries, country, society and consumers at large”. According to industry body FICCI, from the counterfeiting activity the government of India incurred a loss of Rs.26,190 crores in fiscal year 2011-12 which has increased to Rs.39,239 crores in 2013-14, a growth of 49.8 per cent in two years.

To combat this problem as a non-profit association we brought world-class new generation effective authentic solutions which are empowering consumer, brand owners and government authorities to easily identify genuine goods and products. We are bridging the gap between brands and consumers by verifying and authenticating products to the consumer in real-time through mobile app, web application and SMS amongst others.

“We welcome the initiative of government of India and the campaign ‘Make in India’, however, there is a constant need to ensure that these ‘Made in India’ labelled products are genuine, safe and secure till they are delivered to the end consumer. The lack of awareness is making innocent people unknowingly buy fakes at the cost of original products. In one of the worst examples of harm, buying fake medicines or baby food can result in serious health issues or even loss of life,” Agarwal further added.

Currently various government authorities and brand owners are adopting these solutions in the interest of society. For example, more than 25 states in India are already using approximately 2,000 crores security holograms (tax stamps) on liquor bottles per annum. The usage of these authentication solutions have not only minimised the tragedies due to spurious liquor but also have substantially increased the excise revenue collection by more than 15-20 per cent on year to year basis.”

Rohitt D Mistry, deputy director- Asia, IHMA said, “The global trade in counterfeit goods reached a value of $461 billion in 2013, according to a new report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The danger of counterfeiting gets multiplied when it comes to healthcare products including pharmaceuticals, baby care and skin care products. According to International Policy Network report “Keeping it Real” over 7,00,000 people avoidably die every year due to fake malaria and tuberculosis drugs. The authentication solutions play an important role in consumer protection, and helping brand owners in increasing revenue by knocking off counterfeiters from the market, as there is a tendency that counterfeiters go for brands which have simple packaging.

There are case studies in the Pharmaceutical industry which indicated that adoption of authentication solutions have impacted over 50 per cent of increase in sales. The more and more brands are adopting solutions such as high security hologram with 2D and alphanumeric codes on each individual blister pack, bottle or injectable vial.

Indian industries have lots of potential but badly affected due to counterfeiting and the high menace of counterfeit is not only bothering government & brand owners but also increasing life threat to the end consumer.

This matter is so serious that if no immediate measures are taken than counterfeit market size in next 5 years will grow tremendously and will be a very substantial loss to the Indian government.

We believe that our media plays an important role to highlight the menace of counterfeiting, forging of documents and protect the revenues of central and states governments which will benefit the citizens of India at large.