The recent Ganesh Chaturthi festival has come as a blessing for the blood banks in Surat, which were facing a shortage of blood for the last few months.

For the first time, several organisers had held blood donation camps in the Ganesh pandals during the 10 days of the celebrations. Over 2,713 blood bags were collected and donated to the blood banks in Surat.

The Chauta Bazaar-based Mota Mandir Yuvak Mandal was the first to come up with the idea of organising blood donation camps in the pandal for the visitors. Later many other mandals followed suit and started blood donation camps in their areas.

Doctors and attendants from the Surat Raktdan Kendra and the Lok Samarpan Raktdan Kendra, the two major blood banks in the city, were present at the several camps organised by the 35 pandals in the city, during the festival.

The Mota Mandir Yuvak Mandal donated the largest number of blood bags (772), followed by Jay Mataji (130) Pragati Mandal (129) blood bags.

Mota Mandir Yuvak Mandal member Mehul Jadia said: “We had fixed a target of collecting more than 500 bottles during this 10-day festival, and we achieved it. We have now decided to organise such blood donation camps on each festival so that blood banks do not face shortage of blood. Other pandals too have started such camps.”

Dr Narendra Vasawda, the Superintendent of Surat Raktdan Kendra, said: “We appreciate the attempt by Mota Mandir Yuvak Mandal, which was taken up by the other pandals as well. Sometimes, blood banks do face shortage of blood, but if such type of camps are organised during each festival, then we won’t face any shortage. We are organising camps to motivate people to go for blood donation, but are not getting proper response.”