Mumbai, Jan 2 (IANS): In a New Year gift to its employees, the Western Railway (WR) has launched a state-of-the-art in-house blood bank for its employees at the Jagjivan Ram Hospital, an official said here on Wednesday.

WR General Manager A. K. Gupta threw it open here Tuesday (Jan. 1), making it the first advanced blood bank having blood component and facility on any hospital on the Indian Railways.

The Blood Bank - for which advanced equipment worth Rs 2.50 crore have been provided - has a capacity of 2000 blood units, facility for platelet donation which is very used for cancer and dengue patients, a special quality control laboratory and an entire floor dedicated in the hospital's new annexure building.

The spokesperson for WR Ravinder Bhakar said the Jagjivan Ram Hospital is the zonal hospital having various super-speciality departments which require large quantities of blood, besides patients of dengue and cancer who need platelets.

"Nearly 80 per cent of the indoor admissions here are from outside Mumbai and it was very difficult to arrange blood for them. Now the new facility of an inhouse Blood Bank will help arranging blood for critical patients at any hours," Bhakar said.