After almost two years of dilly-dallying on the proposal, the Union Health Ministry has finally given its approval to establish four Metro Blood Banks, which will get the status of Centres of Excellence, in the four metro cities of Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. The ministry has already made a provision of Rs 25 crore for the project for the year 2010-2011.

These metro blood banks will have state-of-the-art facilities with 100 per cent blood components preparation, and a capacity to process more than 100,000 units of blood annually. These blood banks would not only act as model blood banks with latest equipments and technology but would also be of great help in meeting the ever rising demands of these metro cities.

According to sources, the respective state governments have already confirmed the availability of land for the proposed blood banks. The National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has selected Design DPR Consultants for the project, who have submitted their preliminary designs for Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata sites of the metro blood banks, which are in the process of approval.

Meanwhile, the government has come in for criticism from the standing committee attached to the ministry for the inordinate delay in implementing the project. In its recent report, the committee, while welcoming the government initiative in establishing four metro blood banks as Centres of Excellence, expressed its unhappiness over the slow progress of the department in realizing this initiative which has been pending since 2008-09.

Even though no deadlines have been set regarding making the project functional, keeping in mind the delay already made in implementation of this initiative, the committee recommended to the ministry to have a targeted approach in making the four metro blood banks functional at the earliest. The committee also drew the attention of the health ministry to the undue delay in the operationalisation of model blood bank at Tirupati for which infrastructure has already been provided by the state government.