Metro blood banks for Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai:Cabinet

New Delhi, July 31 (UNI) Four Metro Blood Banks will be set up in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai as centres of excellence in transfusion medicine at a cost of Rs 468 crore, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) decided today.

Of the total cost, Rs 228 crore would be as part of the ongoing National AIDS Control Programme III (NACP-III), Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters.

The 24-hour centres would ensure availability of blood which would meet the highest standards of safety.

Each Centre would collect more than 100,000 units of blood annually. These would be pocessed into three blood components resulting in generation of more than 300,000 units.

The centres would expand training programme to include doctors, technicians, nurse and other health personnel and handle any type of natural or man-made disaster or outbreak of diseases like dengue which often require large volumes of blood transfusions at short notice.

They would collect blood only from voluntary blood donors through state-of-art blood mobiles, qualitatively improving the system of blood collection.

Of the Rs 468 crore, Rs 168 crore would be for building construction and equipment, Rs 80 crore for manpower and Rs 220 crore for consumables and other recurring expenditure.

These centres would benefit in strengthening blood transfusion servies in the country for access to safe and quality blood and blood products in metro cities, as comparable to international standards.

The time-frame would be co-terminus to phase three of NACP III (2007-12).

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