Blood donation in Jaya's name enters Guinness Book

Collective effort of over 50,000 people comprising a motley crowd of students, professionals and government employees besides others saw the collection of over 18,000 litres of blood at camps organised across Tamil Nadu to commemorate the 66th birthday of AIADMK supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalitha earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records on Monday.

Though Jayalalithaa's 66th birthday falls only on February 24, it was conducted to coincide with her birth star that fell on Friday last.

Organised by the Transport Department, the state government employees took the pain and went all out to rope in the students from various colleges and people of various walks of life to donate blood at the camp organised in various cities of the State including Chennai, Vellore, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Madurai, Villupuram, Karur, Salem, Kumbakonam and Tirunelveli on February 14.

Till now, the largest blood donation drive was organised by Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan at Dera Sacha Sauda in Haryana on August 8, 2010 when 43,732 people donated blood.

But this time in Tamil Nadu, a total of 53,129 persons, which also included transport employees, donated their blood during the camp.

In Chennai, State Transport Minister V Senthil Balaji was the first donor at the venue organised in Chrompet at the outskirts of the city. The 60,000 sq.ft venue was filled with more than 500 beds and 42 blood banks, with both government and private hospitals engaged. The general public also came forward to donate blood. 

"In Chennai alone, more than 15,000 persons donated their blood", a senior official from the Transport Department said. The official said that an exclusive meeting was conducted by the officials comprising senior government doctors and nurses besides partymen to discuss the blood donation camp during February first week.

He said that though the students resented the aggressive attitude of the party men, they however, happily donated their blood after waiting hours together in a long queue at the camp in various cities that began at 8am on Friday went on till 7.30 pm.

"It is my great honour and pleasure to be here to award an official Guinness World Record certificate for the world record for conducting the largest blood donation camp at multiple venues to  Jayalalithaa, general secretary and chief minister of Tamil Nadu," the Guinness representative Lousia said.

According to her, who handed over a certificate that tags the mega event as a 'Guinness World Record', to Jayalalithaa at the state secretariat, a total of 18,439.28 litres of blood was collected from the camp and this is likely to result in higher chances for many lives to be saved.

Meanwhile in a statement, Jayalalithaa congratulated and thanked all those who had organised and took part in the blood donation camp. Last year, more than 20,000 employees of the State-owned transport Corporations donated blood to mark the birthday of AIADMK chief.