Organ donation in Bihar received a boost on Sunday with chief minister Nitish Kumar's pledge to donate his eyes after death.

At a programme organised by non-government organisation Dadhichi Deh Dan Samiti, Nitish said: "Organ donation is an extraordinary social campaign. You won't be alive but will still be remembered if you donate your organs."

He pledged his eyes for patients requiring corneal transplant.

Health minister Mangal Pandey took a similar pledge during the programme at Vidyapati Bhavan, while deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi - the chief patron of the NGO - also reiterated his vow for eye donation.

Nitish and his ministers have joined the likes of former Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu and late Rajya Sabha member Nanaji Deshmukh whose bodies have been donated for medical research.

The chief minister said eye banks would be opened in every medical college and hospital and also set a deadline for starting an eye bank at Rajendra Nagar Hospital as conceptualised in 2013. While the Rajendra Nagar facility remains a non-starter, Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) has not only opened an eye bank (in 2014) but also conducted 162 corneal transplants.

Nitish said the eye bank at Rajendra Nagar Hospital would become operational by any means by December. Besides, a liver transplant facility would start at IGIMS by the end of this year, he said. "We are also trying to start kidney transplant at Patna Medical College and Hospital. Under the able leadership of Mangal Pandey ji, we hope to reach heights in the health sector as we had achieved in the NDA's first term," said Nitish.

Sushil Modi said a brain-death declaration committee, required to declare patients as brain dead, would be formed in every medical college and hospital of Bihar and a transplant centre would be developed at IGIMS or PMCH where doctors would be trained on transplant.

The family members of eight persons who had decided to donate the cornea of the deceased were felicitated at the Sunday programme. Digha MLA Sanjeev Chaurasia, Patna mayor Sita Sahu, former MLC Ganga Prasad, social activist Mukesh Hissaria were present.

Ophthalmologist Subhash Prasad said: "Cornea can be extracted within six to eight hours of death while the corneal extraction process hardly takes around 10-15 minutes."