Metro Blood Bank Project is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to set up state-of-the-art Centres of Excellence in Transfusion Medicine in the four Metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. These centres are high volume blood collection centres where there is state of the art technology in transfusion medicine for component separation, processing of blood and quality systems. Facilities for screening of collected blood by NAT would be made available at these centres and also extended to the other blood banks of the state.

Approval of Hon’ble Minister of Health and Family Welfare has been accorded for the first phase, wherein these facilities will come up in Chennai and Delhi. National Blood Transfusion Council under National AIDS Control Organization will the implementing division of the Ministry for this project.

Taking this forward, a memorandum of understanding was signed between J Radhakrishnan, Secretary Health, Govt of Tamil Nadu and Dr C V Dharma Rao, Joint Secretary, NACO, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in the chamber of Union Secretary for Health and Family Welfare, Shri B P Sharma and presence of Shri N S Kang, Additional Secretary and DG NACO and Dr R S Gupta, Director National Blood Transfusion Council. The agreement formalizes central government support to set up and run these centres in the state of Tamil Nadu, for which land has been provided free of cost by the state. Central government has approved an outlay of approximately 200 cr per centre for this important initiative.

Pic: MoU between Union of India and state of Tamil Nadu for 'establishment of metro blood bank center of excellence for blood transfusion services' in Chennai