Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday announced that he is ready to donate his organs after death.
He said that he was inspired by the positive response of 1.2 lakh persons who responded to his call for organ donation last week, following which he offered to pledge his organs too.
Naidu also said that the state would introduce a lesson on organ donation in the school curriculum and also explore the possibility of making organ donation pledge mandatory while issuing driving licences.
He was speaking at a meeting where the officials collected organ donation pledge papers from 1.2 lakh persons and handed them over to the Jeevandaan, a government initiative.
India Book of Records representative Rakesh Verma announced that they have recognised this as inspiring event.
Naidu called for fighting superstitions around organ donation. He said people should be educated about the need to donate organs and how their action give a new lease of life to the receiver.
"Awareness should be spread among the people that in case of any mishap, organs be donated. People should be brought out of their blind beliefs and be asked donate their organs. 1.20 lakh people donating their organs on a single day is a historic incident. I appreciate Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) for taking up such great initiative. We will keep a lesson on organ donation in academics. We will think of making organ donation compulsory for driving license. Everyone should discuss about organ donation. On the coming Organ Donation Day, huge number of people across the state should pledge to donate their organs," Naidu said in a statement.
In November last year, Tamil Nadu was adjudged the best state in Organ Donation for the third time in a row, with 5,933 organs retrieved from 1,056 donors, according to the Union Health Ministry.