Bar Code to be made mandatory for public procurement of drugs

The medicines procured under Public Procurement from 1st April 2019 must have Bar code /QR Code at primary level packaging. Such Code will mandatorily contain Name of the product including strength, brand name (if there is any), MRP, name & address of Manufacturer, Batch Number, Manufacturing date, expiry date, special storage conditions required (if any) and manufacturing license number.

New Delhi: In order to maintain transparency, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers has recently decided to require mandatory details of the drugs procured under Public Procurement system.

The Ministry recently released orders to this effect making bar code mandatory of procurement of drugs under public procurement. The said will be effective from April 1 2019.

For this, the Center has come up with the addition of para7(A) after para 7 in the recent orders of public procurement that was published on January 1, 2019. Para 7 talks about the applicability of the public procurement order on all government bodies,

" It is clarified that this order shall also be applicable to procurement of medicines made by State Governments or PSUs under State Governments or local bodies under Centrally Sponsered schemes that are fully or partially funded by Government of India."

In partial modification of the Department of Pharmaceuticals' order, now the following para 7(A) will be inserted after Para 7 in the said Order in order to make the BAR code mandatory namely,

Para 7(A) :-“The medicines procured under Public Procurement from 1st April 2019 must have Bar code /QR Code at primary level packaging. Such Code will mandatorily contain Name of the product including strength, brand name (if there is any), MRP, name & address of Manufacturer, Batch Number, Manufacturing date, expiry date, special storage conditions required (if any) and manufacturing license number.”

The January 1, 2019 order talks about public procurement order, 2017, that notified provisions about pharmaceutical formulations.

The order can be accessed by clicking on the following link:

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