The Union ministry of commerce has assigned the Pharmexcil to identify whether there were any rejection of exported consignments of merchant exporters by destination countries due to poor packaging and labelling in the recent past. The Ministry also asked the Council to explore the remedial measures to be taken as a proactive step to keep the image of the Indian exporters untainted.

The action comes in the backdrop of some tip offs received by the ministry recently that several exported consignments are being returned because of the damage due to poor packaging. The ministry, then passed on the information to the Drug Controller General of India, and he in turn asked the CDSCO West Zone to take up the issue for further examination and to prepare a guideline to prescribe minimum standards for outer packaging for merchant exporters.

Though a meeting was summoned on August 17, in the central drug regulator's zonal office in Mumbai, only a few merchant exporters showed up. As per the records on exports with the office, the incidents where the consignments of merchant exporters rejected by destination country found to be very few, CDSCO sources said.

The ministry has now asked the Pharmexcil to take up the issue by calling more merchant exporters. The Council has thus organised a meeting on August 27 in the zonal office of the central drug regulatory office, to find out whether such an issue exists and the remedies to be taken.

“Our mission is to gather the merchant exporters to know whether such an issue exists in the industry. This is a proactive measure from the ministry to ensure that the exported drugs from India do keep quality standards at any level,” said Dr P V Appaji, executive director, Pharmexcil, when contacted.

If there are indications suggesting existence of such an issue, the meeting will also review the existing specifications of packaging materials and will collect necessary inputs for framing guidelines to prescribe minimum standards for outer packaging for merchant exporters.