New Delhi: India’s organ transplant crisis is not simply a shortage of transplant facilities or surgeons but also a shortage of donated organs. The scale of the gap is stark: around two lakh new kidney patients, 50,000 liver patients and 50,000 heart patients are added to the pool needing transplants every year, while the number of transplants remains far lower, according to Dr Anil Kumar, director, National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (NOTTO).Dr Kumar shared the figures ahead of World Organ Donation Day on Aug 13, at a joint awareness programme held by Fortis Escorts, Okhla, and NOTTO Tuesday. The event focused on India’s shortage of deceased-donor organs and the need to increase organ donation.Against the annual addition of patients cited by Dr Kumar, India performs around 14,500 kidney, over 5,100 liver, 239 heart and over 200 lung transplants a year. There is also unmet demand for pancreas and intestine transplants.These numbers are not a direct measure of how many patients remain without an organ; the number of patients added and the number of transplants performed are different measures, but they illustrate the enormous mismatch between potential need and transplant capacity.Dr Kumar said living donations alone cannot bridge this gap. A living donor can donate one kidney or a portion of the liver, and donation involves inherent, though minimal, surgical risks.Deceased donation offers a much larger multiplier. A single brain-dead donor in an ICU can potentially donate up to eight organs — two kidneys, two lungs, liver, heart, pancreas and intestine — while also donating tissues such as corneas, skin and bones.“A deceased donor can save up to eight lives and improve the quality of life for dozens more through tissue donation,” Dr Kumar said at the event. He added that India has world-class transplant expertise and infrastructure, but thousands of lives are still lost because of the shortage of deceased donors.According to Dr Z S Meharwal, head adult cardiac surgery at Fortis, nearly 90,000 patients were on the national transplant waitlist as of March 2026, while 2,805 patients died awaiting transplants between 2020 and 2024. Deceased donors account for only about 18% of transplants. He added that India’s deceased-organ donation rate remains below one donor per million population, compared with around 49 per million in Spain and 22-26 per million in the US.
