There are 3,500 licensed blood banks in the country and 63 districts are without the facility, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told Lok Sabha on Friday.

Elaborating on the steps taken or proposed by the government to set up blood banks in each district of the country, Mandaviya said the extant policy norm for setting up blood banks as per National Blood Policy is to have at least one licensed blood bank in every district while avoiding clustering of the blood banks in urban and semi urban areas.