The Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to respond to a petition seeking affixation of Quick Response (QR) codes on all medicinal and food products to make them accessible to the visually impaired.
A Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad also issued notices to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India and Drugs Technical Advisory Board on the petition by ‘The Kapila and Nirmal Hingorani Foundation’.
The plea stated that a smartphone with accessibility feature could scan the QR code containing requisite information about the product and then convert the same to speech format for the benefit of the visually impaired.
It said employing QR codes would increase the efficacy of medical care for visually impaired patients by reducing medication errors, incorrect dosages, unintended drug interactions and side effects as well as combat the growing menace of counterfeit and substandard medicine.
“In order to secure effective access to medicines, food, cosmetics and other consumer products, it has become imperative and expedient to affix Quick Response (QR) codes in a proper manner and containing the requisite information so that a smartphone with accessibility feature could then scan the QR Code with its stored data or information about the particular product, and decode it to convert the text to speech format of the application,” the petition said.
“Comprehensive measures or guidelines on the affixing of QR codes on medicines, food, cosmetics and other consumer products simply do not exist in the country. The respondent authorities have, to the best knowledge of the petitioner Nos. 2 and 3, failed to take comprehensive measures or frame comprehensive guidelines in this regard,” stated the plea.
