The Maharashtra government has begun the process of setting up a metropolitan blood bank in Mumbai at a total cost of Rs.3.5 crore, according to Dr Sanjay Jadhav, the assistant director, health services of the Maharashtra State Blood Transfusion Council, who is driving the project.

The blood bank, which would also have research and development facilities, will be attached to the JJ Hospital and Grant Medical College's Department of Transfusion Medicine. Eventually, the facility would fall under the administrative purview of dean of the Grant Medical College at Byculla, a suburb on Mumbai's central railway line.

The project will be declared open on May 1, the Maharashtra Day.

That's not all. The Grant Medical College facility would be a pilot project. Later, such facilities would come up in KEM Hospital as well as another government hospital at Nagpur.

"The state government has disbursed an initial amount of Rs.2 crore for the Grant Medical College metropolitan blood bank project, while another Rs.1.5 crore will be disbursed by April," Dr Jadhav said.

Consultants to set up the project have also been appointed on a turnkey basis. Prathama Consultancy has been appointed the prime consultant. It will also provide training for the blood bank personnel.

The sub-consultant is the Ahmedabad-based Janakalyan group, which runs a chain of blood banks. It will deal with donor motivation, legal aspects as well as licensing issues.

The target is to collect approximately 50,000 units of blood per year on a 100 per cent voluntary donation basis. The blood bank will not store any liquid 'whole' blood. It will store blood only as various components like plasma, platelets, cryo-precipitate, RBC pack cells etc.

The metropolitan blood bank will be housed in the three-story Petit Building, which is close to the JJ Police Station. On the ground floor, there will be a blast freezer, where blood collection and blood grouping will be carried out.

All components will be stored in a blast freezer. The freezer has three chambers. The outermost chamber with a temperature of two to six degrees, would be used to store red blood cells.

Plasma will be stored in a second inner chamber, which has a temperature of -30 to -40 degree, while plasma products would be stored in the inner most chamber, which would have a temperature of -80 degree.

In the first floor of the building, there will be an auditorium for lectures, besides workstations for administration purposes, whereas the second floor will house a dining hall, a studio for information and education, as well as facilities for social marketing.

Since the blood bank will source blood solely through voluntary donations, there are plans to organize around 8000 blood donation camps per year all over Maharashtra. To collect and transport the blood from various locations, the blood bank would also have air-conditioned vehicles with refrigeration facilities. Each vehicle would approximately cost Rs.30 lakh.