After installing Anaconda for a new project that I have, it seemed I broke my catkin directory due to different installation paths. I was getting the following message (Unbuntu 14).

ImportError: “from catkin_pkg.package import parse_package” failed: No module named catkin_pkg.package
Make sure that you have installed “catkin_pkg”, it is up to date and on the PYTHONPATH.

This is a temporary fix.

1. Do catkin clean.
2. Go to your ~/.bashrc and comment the line that anaconda created in which states the use of Python.  Namely,  #export PATH=”/home/humberto/anaconda2/bin:$PATH” (# indicates commented out). Source the file.
3. Make sure the build folder is not present in the catkin_ws directory. If it is there, delete it.
4. Run catkin build or catkin_make, depending on what kind of catkin tools you have.
5. It should work.
6. In case it does not, try closing all the terminals and run catkin build again.

Good luck!