Lucknow: Despite being India’s most populous state, UP stood in 10th place among states and Union Territories in organ transplants in 2025, performing 637 procedures during the year.According to the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation’s (NOTTO) annual report, the state’s lag stems from its continued dependence on living donors, weak deceased-donor programmes and inadequate transplant infrastructure.The state trailed Punjab, which recorded 644 transplants, and was only marginally ahead of Rajasthan with 624. Delhi NCR led the country with 4,564 transplants, followed by Tamil Nadu (2,796) and Maharashtra (2,136).Of the total procedures in the state, 599 were kidney transplants and the rest, 38, were liver transplants.Nationally, India recorded 20,138 organ transplants in 2025, up from 18,911 the previous year. UP accounted for 3.1% of all procedures performed across the country.“Most transplant activity in UP is concentrated in Lucknow and a handful of tertiary-care centres such as SGPGIMS, RMLIMS and KGMU. District hospitals still lack systems for brain-death certification, transplant coordination and organ retrieval,” said a transplant surgeon at KGMU.Prof Manish Manar, a public-health expert at KGMU, said delays in identifying brain-death cases, shortage of intensive-care beds and low consent rates among families continue to hamper deceased-organ donation in the state.SGPGIMS serves as the headquarters of the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), which coordinates organ allocation and transplant programmes across UP. In the govt sector, SGPGIMS, KGMU and RMLIMS are the main centres to provide the facility of transplantation of liver and kidney.Dr Rajesh Harshvardhan, nodal officer of SOTTO, said organ donations have made remarkable progress since 2020.“This year, SGPGIMS also conducted a heart transplant. Besides, we have announced that the expenses incurred by the family of a brain-dead patient who consents to organ donation will be waived. We have also delinked the requirement of having a transplant faculty approved for declaring brain death to increase the availability of cadaveric donations,” he added.He said one cadaveric organ donation can save or improve up to eight lives.Experts said expanding brain-death identification systems, improving intensive-care infrastructure and strengthening transplant coordination in govt hospitals would be critical if the state is to narrow the gap with leading states in organ transplantation.
