The Health Ministry’s ambitious project of setting up of four state-of-the-art Metro Blood Banks each in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai is gathering dust for the last two-and-a-half years.
These blood banks were meant to not only act as model blood banks with latest equipments and technology but also aimed to be of great help in meeting the ever rising demands for the blood in these metro cities. The Ministry has already allocated a provision of Rs 25 crore for the World-Bank funded project for the year 2010-2011.
These metro blood banks will have facilities for 100 per cent blood components preparation and a capacity to process more than 1,00,000 units of blood annually. These blood banks aimed to act as mother banks for the smaller blood banks across the country.
The proposal for setting up of Metro Blood Banks was one of the approved activities under National Aids Control Programme-Phase III.
However, the project has caught up in a red tape and the subsequent cost escalation is likely to further delay its execution. Sources said that after long wait, the land transfer has been done for sites at Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai while for Delhi site, the same is still pending.
In fact, the Ministry is moving at the snail’s pace not only in the case of setting up these four metro blood banks. It has also failed to set up the target 39 blood banks at the district hospitals in 39 districts during the 11th five-year Plan.
The 39 districts with no blood bank were identified in the States of Bihar, UP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Mizoram, and Uttarakhand. However, so far, only 25 blood banks have been set up. Non-completion of infrastructure, inadequate man-power, lack of equipments and non-acquisition of licence etc are being attributed as major reasons for the delay.
“As per the norms, the State needs to provide land, infrastructure, equipments and manpower before support of laboratory technician, some equipment support and consumables are provided under this scheme. Of the remaining 14 cases, in six districts construction of the building for blood banks is complete and steps are being taken to meet the requirements for a licence,” said a senior Health Ministry official. He said, in eight other districts, blood bank buildings are under construction.