The small scale pharma industry in the country has sought the intervention of Parliamentary standing committee attached to Union commerce ministry to repeal the notification issued by DGFT on Barcode under which implementation of barcoding has been made mandatory for all pharma exporters from October 1 this year.


As per the latest DGFT notification, barcoding will be implemented for pharma exporters in phased manner from October 1, 2011.


In a letter to the members of the Parliamentary standing committee on commerce, the SME Pharma Industries Confederation (SPIC) said that while barcoding is being portrayed as a step towards increasing export, the real purpose is to make exports impossible from Indian SMEs, and China will be the ultimate gainer. MNCs wish to export patented versions at 200 times the price as compared to that of affordable generics exported by Indian SMEs.


The government should take SMEs into confidence so that a large part of the Rs.55,000 crore worth of medicines exported from India is not lost just the way India lost the entire bulk drugs export business to China earlier, the letter said.


About the futility of the barcoding, SPIC said that barcodes were devised as a means of inventory control by supermarkets in the west when it became impossible to physically take stock of thousands of items even by a monthly closure of departmental store. It is true that some pharma MNCs use barcoding to prevent transfer of medicines from one country to another since their MRP is different for each country, but such high priced drugs cannot be compared to export of affordable generics from India. Barcoding can certainly never be a means of preventing fakes. Even M/s GS-1, a Canadian company to whom government has handed out the sole contract for India, refuses to make the claim that it can prevent fakes. Since barcodes can be replicated, it can strengthen acceptance of fake on the contrary, it said.


The SSIs said that fake drugs is not an issue with their customers in third world countries. They neither have computers nor barcode readers at each stage of sale which is essential for the mandated barcoding. Power availability is worse than India in these countries. Why the fake issue is blown out of proportion by Indian Government is not understood because only 11 fake drugs were found out of 24000 Samples lifted for the purpose in a special survey of Indian market by CDSCO in 2009, the letter said.


Pleading the financial unviability of barcoding, SPIC said that cost of registration with M/s GS-1 shall be around Rs.20,000 per month apart from monthly cost of say Rs.1,00,000 for barcoding accessories like inks etc. for an average SME.