The straight answer, because this question deserves one: No. You cannot legally be paid to donate blood in India — and that is a feature of the system, not a flaw.
The law
Under India’s Drugs and Cosmetics Act framework, blood is classified so that it cannot be bought or sold. Blood banks may charge processing/testing fees to hospitals — the donor is never paid, and nobody may stand between a donor’s arm and a patient with a price tag. Every licensed blood bank in India operates on voluntary donation only.
“But abroad, plasma pays!”
True, and worth understanding: a private industry in the United States pays people for plasma used to manufacture medicines. That industry has no Indian legal existence, and this page is not a loophole-finder for it. In India, plasma is collected voluntarily, like whole blood.
Why India chose this deliberately
The paid-blood era in India (before the 1990s reforms) was ugly: professional donors donating far too often, hiding illness for money, and contaminated units reaching patients. The law changed blood from a commodity to a gift — and transfusion-transmitted infection rates fell because of it. Unpaid donation is not just idealism; it is the reason Indian blood is safer than it was.
What you DO get
Free health screening, the biscuits, and the knowledge that your group reached a real patient. If anyone ever offers you money to arrange a donor — take the money as evidence, not payment: report it to us and to the police.