The Union health ministry's decision to centralise the blood banking system in the country has come in for sharp criticism from the pharma and health experts in the country. They fear that the ministry's move will lead to severe shortage of blood banks in the country.

The National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has recently proposed to set up a Blood Transfusion Authority which will cancel licenses of the small private blood collection banks in the country which do not fulfil the desired standards of providing safe blood.

According to Amite Sen Gupta, a leading pharma and health expert working with Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, the ministry's decision would only create problems as the number of blood banks in the country will come down drastically.

Gupta, also adviser to several health related NGOs, said that the government's move to cancel licenses to small private blood banks will create problems as the need of the hour is to set up more and more blood collection centers in every parts of the country to tackle the issue of severe shortage of blood in India.

According to him when there are plenty of blood collection centers in the private sector, country is still short of at least three million units of blood every year. In these conditions government should only try to enhance the capacity and efficacy of these blood banks by providing them with latest testing facility and not to disconnect them with the current status.

"Instead of cancelling the licenses of these private blood collection banks and making them blood storage centers, government in its coming project should only provide standard testing facility to these centers, and they would work as a noble blood collection banks", Gupta said. Though it needed a big amount of investment, the government should do the investment in public interest", he added.