Bhubaneswar: With hundreds of people in real need of blood and their relatives falling prey to a WhatsApp forwarded message named ‘Blood on Call’, several blood donors from the state have come forward to call the bluff.
According to reputed blood donors Gopimohan Pattanaik and Sushant Sahu, the services offered in the message do not exist in Odisha. These sorts of fake information should be banned, both demanded.
The WhatsApp message encourages people in need of blood to dial 104. It promises to deliver blood at Rs 450 per bottle with additional Rs 100 for transportation. Besides, it assures to deliver the blood within 40 kms radius within a maximum delivery time of four hours. These apart, the text claims it to be a pan-India service started by Modi government.
That said, further research on this subject revealed that this service was launched by Maharashtra government back in January 2014 with moderate success. Orissa POST could not independently verify the current status of the scheme there.
PNN