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.