The healthcare professional wears a bandage on their upper arm, representing a blood donation they may have made.
There is one city in India where a blood centre has achieved something that the entire country is still working toward: 100% voluntary blood donation, 100% blood componentisation, and blood available to needy patients without replacement.
That city is Ahmedabad. And the institution is Prathama Blood Centre.
Gujarat has been a national leader in voluntary blood donation for decades. The state's Red Cross organisation has won the National Blood Donation Trophy — awarded by the President of India to the Red Cross branch with the highest voluntary donations in the country — every year since 2000–2001. No other state has come close to matching this consistency.
Yet even with this achievement, Ahmedabad's blood system acknowledges that around 50% of the city's patients still find it difficult to get blood when needed. If 5% of Ahmedabad's population donated blood voluntarily at regular intervals, Prathama estimates the gap would close entirely.
That gap — between a nationally-lauded donation culture and persistent patient-level shortages — is the story of blood banking in one of India's fastest-growing cities.
Ahmedabad is Gujarat's commercial capital and one of India's fastest-growing metropolitan areas. With a population exceeding 8 million in the greater urban area, a booming manufacturing and pharmaceutical sector, and some of the country's leading hospitals — including UN Mehta Institute of Cardiology and Research Centre, Civil Hospital, VS Hospital, and Apollo — the city generates enormous blood demand year-round.
Gujarat's blood banking history begins in 1963, when the first voluntary blood bank in the state was started by the Indian Red Cross Society at Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad. From an initial collection of approximately 400 units in 1963, the Gujarat Red Cross now collects more than 160,000 units of blood annually across its 23 blood centres and 15 blood storage units.
Statistics show Ahmedabad leading India in blood donation to population ratio at 3.5% — a remarkable figure that Prathama Blood Centre attributes to its community of over 250,000 voluntary donors. Annually, approximately 50,000 donors voluntarily donate blood to Prathama alone.
Prathama Blood Centre (C.V. Raman Marg, Vasna, Ahmedabad) is one of India's most frequently cited examples of what a voluntary blood system can achieve.
Key facts about Prathama:
What makes Prathama's model particularly instructive is its proof of concept: a blood centre that refuses replacement donation, insists on voluntary-only collection, and still manages to supply half a major city's blood needs — demonstrates that the national goal of 100% voluntary donation is not aspirational but achievable.
Gujarat's Indian Red Cross Society has built a voluntary blood donation infrastructure that is unmatched in consistency anywhere in the country.
Highlights:
The centennial nature of Gujarat's voluntary donation tradition — rooted in the 1962 movement post the India–China war and nurtured through the Red Cross since 1963 — gives the state a voluntary donor culture that most Indian states are still working to build.
Gujarat has among India's highest sickle cell disease prevalence in tribal communities. Tribal groups including the Vasava, Kukana, Gamit, Rohit, and Chaudry communities have particularly high SCD rates. The surat Raktadan Kendra and Research Centre (SRKRC) in Surat provides more than 10,000 units of blood free annually to thalassemia, sickle cell anaemia, haemophilia, and other patients — a significant commitment that illustrates how Gujarat's blood institutions have stepped up to serve vulnerable populations.
For Gujarat's tribal communities living with sickle cell disease, the blood system is not a peripheral healthcare resource — it is the central pillar keeping children alive. Platforms like TheBloodApp extend this reach digitally, connecting tribal or semi-rural patients with urban voluntary donors faster than replacement donation systems can.
Government Hospitals:
IRCS and Trust-Run:
Private Hospital Blood Banks:
Apollo, Zydus (now Zydus Hospitals), SAL, and other private chains maintain hospital blood banks across the city.
Walk-in donations: Prathama Blood Centre, IRCS Paldi, and Civil Hospital all accept voluntary walk-in donors. Prathama's reputation for donor experience — professional, efficient, respectful — makes it particularly popular among repeat donors.
Blood donation camps: IRCS Ahmedabad organises camps across colleges, corporate campuses, and residential areas. The Red Cross's deep community network makes it easy to connect with upcoming drives. TheBloodApp also lists upcoming camps in Ahmedabad.
Corporate drives: Ahmedabad's pharmaceutical corridor, diamond industry, and textile sector all have potential for large voluntary drives. IRCS and Prathama are experienced partners for corporate blood donation programmes.
To make an urgent blood request in Ahmedabad or find donation camps across Gujarat, call the number listed in TheBloodApp.
The Prathama model is not a secret. It has been documented, studied, and cited in blood banking research across India. What it demonstrates is that a city can build a voluntary blood culture through sustained institutional commitment, donor relationship management, and a refusal to accept replacement donation as a necessary evil.
Gujarat's Red Cross national trophy record shows that this culture, once built, compounds over decades — creating centurion donors, donor families, and community identity around blood donation that no single campaign can replicate.
Other Indian cities can learn from Ahmedabad. And Ahmedabad itself can close the remaining 50% patient gap — by reaching the 5% of the city's population that has not yet become part of this extraordinary voluntary tradition.
Register on TheBloodApp, donate at Prathama or any Ahmedabad blood bank, and be part of what Gujarat has built. To find donation camps and make urgent blood requests in Ahmedabad and across Gujarat, call the number listed in the app.
Sources: Prathama Blood Centre Ahmedabad | Red Cross Gujarat — Blood Bank History | PMC — Blood Transfusion Services Maharashtra and Gujarat | SRKRC Surat | PMC — Sickle Cell Disease Tribal India | Statista — Blood Banks India by State | WHO India Blood Safety 2024
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