DA Editorial Desk (Dhruba Deka)
On Thursday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi turned a year older, Agartala’s Pragna Bhavan filled with donors, syringes and goodwill. A mega blood donation camp, organised by the 5 Tripura Battalion NCC in collaboration with the West Tripura District Administration, drew Chief Minister Manik Saha and BJP national general secretary Biplab Kumar Deb, both of whom rolled up their sleeves and donated blood themselves. It was the opening event of a month-long campaign — the ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’, running from 17 September to 17 October under the theme “Jan Seva Hi Prabhu Seva,” or “Service to the People is Service to God.” Blood donation drives, health initiatives and public-service programmes are planned across the state through the month.
There is nothing wrong, and much right, with a government marking a leader’s birthday through service rather than spectacle. Blood donation camps save lives in the most literal sense — Tripura’s hospitals, like those everywhere, depend on a steady, voluntary supply, and a high-profile campaign that gets more citizens into the habit of donating is unambiguously good. Political leaders donating blood themselves, rather than merely inaugurating tables for others to do so, sets a visible example. On its opening day, the Abhiyan did what it was designed to do.
The harder question — and the one this newspaper believes deserves editorial attention now, at the campaign’s start, rather than in hindsight a month from now — is what happens after 17 October. Service campaigns tied to a single symbolic date have a well-worn pattern in Indian public life: a burst of coordinated activity, extensive media coverage, senior leaders photographed in the act of service, and then, once the calendar-bound month ends, a quiet return to business as usual until the next commemorative occasion arrives. If ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’ follows that pattern, it will have done some real good — blood collected is blood collected — but it will have missed the larger opportunity sitting in front of it.
That opportunity is institutional, not symbolic. Tripura’s healthcare system, like much of the Northeast’s, continues to face genuine gaps in blood bank infrastructure, particularly in rural and hill districts far from Agartala’s hospitals. A month of camps concentrated substantially in the state capital does little to address whether blood banks in Dhalai, Gomati or Unakoti districts have the cold-chain storage, staffing and outreach networks to sustain donation drives of their own, year-round, without a national campaign providing the occasion. The test of this Abhiyan should not be how many units of blood were collected in its thirty days, but whether it leaves behind stronger donor registries, better-trained volunteer networks, and blood bank capacity in districts that don’t usually see a chief minister roll up his sleeves.
The same question applies with even more force to the “health initiatives” the campaign promises alongside blood donation. If these amount to one-off health camps that briefly bring doctors to underserved areas and then depart, the benefit is real but fleeting. If instead they are used to identify gaps — villages without regular access to basic diagnostics, health sub-centres lacking staff or equipment — and that information feeds into the state’s ongoing planning, the campaign becomes something more durable than a birthday tribute. The involvement of the NCC and district administrations in organising this month’s events is a genuine asset here; these are institutions with a year-round presence, not campaign-only volunteers, and the coordination built this month need not simply dissolve on 18 October.
There is a broader civic point worth making, too. Public service campaigns work best when they are owned by citizens rather than merely attended by them. A blood camp filled with people who came because a minister was donating is a good start; a blood camp filled with people who came because donating blood has become a regular habit in their community is the actual goal. The measure of success for ‘Seva Sankalp Abhiyan’ a year from now should not be whether it was repeated on the Prime Minister’s next birthday, but whether Tripura’s donor rolls, health outreach and volunteer networks are measurably stronger for having run it.
None of this is a reason for cynicism about this month’s events. Blood saved is blood saved, and Tripura’s leadership deserves credit for setting an example rather than merely presiding over one. But this newspaper will be watching — as, we hope, will readers — for what remains standing on 18 October: a stronger public-health foundation, or simply the memory of a well-photographed month. The difference between the two is entirely a matter of follow-through, and follow-through is squarely within the state government’s control.