Ask an Assam blood bank where its units come from and the answer is uncomfortable: the large majority still come from family and replacement donors — relatives pressured into donating when a patient is admitted.
Why that’s a problem:
- Relatives under pressure may hide risk factors (health, lifestyle) — the least safe blood pool
- A family that can’t produce donors — migrants, the poor, the elderly — is on its own
- Supply collapses in exactly the crises (festival lulls, monsoon) when demand spikes
Voluntary non-remunerated donation — people who give freely, regularly, when healthy — is the global gold standard that NBTC pushes for. Units are safer, supply is steadier, and no family has to beg.
That’s what this register is: Assam saying yes in advance. Most donors are pinged once or twice a year, can always decline, and their number is never published.
Join it: register as a donor — two minutes.