In a move to check sale of spurious liquor and bootlegging, all alcohol bottles sold in the city will soon have two-dimensional modern bar coding with Delhi government today deciding to rope in Tata Consultancy Service for the purpose.

Delhi will become the first city in the country to have introduced the 2D bar-coding on liquor bottles which will help authorities check sell of spurious alcohol and enable on-line tracking of the liquor market, said Finance Minister A K Walia, who also looks after the Excise Department.

The entire project will be fully implemented in the next three months. There are around 300 government-owned and 91 private counters in the city that are authorised to sell liquor.

Walia said the government has decided to enforce the bar coding on liquor bottles to check smuggling and plug loopholes in generation of revenue through sell of alcohol.

"We have decided to award the contract to Tata Consultancy Services which will charge 15 paisa per bottle to put two-dimensional bar coding," he said after a cabinet meeting presided by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

The bar-coding will incorporate a comprehensive data base like type of liquor, date of bottling, batch number, distillery name and other relevant information.

Walia said TCS will be paid back revenues to be collected from the customer on each bottle.

"The project will run for seven years after which the government may extend the contract for another two years or may select any other agency," he said.

It is expected that about 500 crore bottles will have to be bar coded by TCS during the contract period of seven years.

"The 2D bar-coding will ensure minimum human intervention resulting in transparency and better generation of excise duty," he said, adding a formal contract is yet to be entered into with TCS.

Last year, the city government had appointed National Institute for Smart Governance as a consultant for the project.