The Maharashtra State Blood Transfusion Council (MSBTC) has decided to set up Community Based Blood Banks (CBBBs) in all districts of the state with active participation from the private sector bodies. MSBTC has identified Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur as the ideal locations to start the project and the state government has accorded necessary sanctions for the same recently.

According to sources with MSBTC, the state government has sanctioned an initial amount of Rs 1.5 crore for the project and an estimated cost of Rs 5 crore will be incurred for the proposed blood banks in Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur.

They said, MSBTC is looking for private sector participation in these projects either as a joint venture or through sponsorship. They said, for the sponsors the state government will give sops like 100 per cent tax deduction for the equipment supplied to the blood banks. The joint venture route, they said, modalities are not yet worked out but MSBTC is open for all kind of options.

As per the present plans, MSBTC would set up community-based blood banks in all districts in the state within a two-year period. The concept behind the community-based blood banks is to create only one comprehensive, highly sophisticated, centralized blood bank for a particular locality which will provide the required blood for each and every hospitals and clinics in that locality as per the order. All the hospitals and clinics will be connected through computer network, so they can place order in the net easily.

MBTC officials said, the main benefit of this project is that there is no need to keep separate blood banks in the hospitals and one storage facility will be enough to cater to the needs of the patients.