Organ Donation in India: Karnataka Pushes Awareness as Waiting Lists Grow

India’s organ transplant system has expanded, but the country continues to face a stark mismatch between demand and availability. At a September 11 awareness drive in Bengaluru, Ramaiah Memorial Hospital highlighted the urgent need to strengthen deceased organ donation and improve coordination across the transplant chain.

India recorded 20,138 organ transplants in 2025, yet nearly 82% relied on living donors. More than 89,000 patients were on transplant waiting lists as of March 2026. The deceased organ donation rate remains below one donor per million population, far behind Spain’s rate of more than 48 per million, underscoring the scale of the challenge.

Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister U.T. Khader said the state remains committed to strengthening deceased-donation infrastructure and urged more citizens to pledge their organs. Karnataka is also expanding transplant and retrieval capacity, including plans to establish facilities in government medical college hospitals, while the state’s coordination mechanisms support organ allocation and transplantation effectively.

For hospitals, the priority is to identify potential donors in intensive-care units quickly, particularly patients who may meet criteria for brain-death assessment. Trained transplant coordinators, timely brain-death certification, family counselling, donor maintenance, medical testing, retrieval teams and rapid transportation are all essential. A delay at any stage can result in potentially transplantable organs being lost.

Ramaiah Memorial Hospital officials stressed that living donation remains an established option, particularly for kidney and liver failure, but cannot by itself close India’s organ gap. Dr. M.R. Jayaram called for greater public awareness and trust around deceased donation, while Dr. Nagendra Swamy S.C. emphasised pledging, timely donor identification and stronger hospital coordination.

The wider healthcare system also operates within the Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act framework, with NOTTO serving as the national coordinating organisation. These safeguards are intended to support ethical allocation, regulate donation and transplantation, and prevent commercial organ trading.

The central challenge, therefore, is converting public willingness into actual donations through awareness, family consent, better ICU identification, coordinated retrieval and safe, ethical transplantation practices.