As a part of government's plan to set up four metro blood banks as centre of excellence, in cities of New Delhi and Chennai, MoUs have been signed with governments of Delhi and Tamil Nadu to set up metro blood banks in Chennai and New Delhi to improve the blood transfusion services in the country. “There are also plans to set up metro blood bank in Mumbai for which resources have to be identified to help materialise the plan,” says a senior health ministry official.

These blood banks will have state of the art facilities with blood components preparation and capacity to process more than 100,000 units of blood annually.

Governments of Delhi and Tamil Nadu have identified land for the construction of these centres. Design DPR Consultants for these sites have been identified to initiate work at these sites.

Access to safe blood to all the needy is the primary responsibility of National AIDS Control Orgnaisation (NACO). Currently, it is supported by a network of 1103 blood banks including 132 Blood Component Separation Units (BCSU) and 10 Model Blood Banks. NACO supported the installation of blood component separation units and also funded modernisation of all major blood banks at state and district levels.

In addition to constantly enhancing awareness about the need to access safe blood and blood products, NACO has supported the procurement of equipments, test kits and reagents as well as the recurring expenditure of government blood banks and those run by voluntary/charitable organisations that were modernised. There are still 29 districts in the country with no facilities for supply of safe blood.

National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) is implementing a scheme for modernisation of blood banks by providing one time equipments for testing and storage as well as annual recurrent grant for support of manpower, kits and consumables.

During NACP I and II, blood banks in all districts of the country were taken up under the scheme for modernisation of blood banks, except for the newly created districts. In NACP III, 39 newly created districts have been identified with not a blood bank. NACO has taken the initiative with the respective state health department for setting up a blood bank in these districts. 10 blood banks have been made operational while 2 are waiting for license, in 4 districts construction of the building is complete and steps are being taken to fulfill the necessary requirements for license.

In 20 districts, construction of building for a new blood bank has not started yet and in the remaining 3 districts building is under construction. Instructions have been issued from NACO to the respective State AIDS Control Society (SACS) to set up a blood storage centre in these districts till the new blood bank becomes operational.