New Delhi (PTI): Seeking to popularise the concept of organ donation, actress Priyanka Chopra and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday pledged at a special function here to donate their organs. 

"I feel particularly proud to be part of this effort as at one point of time my own father was in the need for such a transplant but thankfully things turned out to be for the better," Chopra said. 

For cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, donating one's organs was a sure-shot way to achieving immortality. 

"Long after you are dead, you continue to live through the people who have got a new life from your organs," he told reporters here. 

"We want more and more celebrities to come forward and take part in organ donation campaigns as it helps spread the message," Col A K Seth, Director, Army Organ Retrieval and Transplant Organisation (AORTA), said. 

The function also witnessed felicitation of persons who had agreed to donate the organs of their loved ones.  The donors came from different backgrounds and their kin recounted their considerations before their decision to donate organs of their family members.  Defence Minister A K Antony, who inaugurated the function, said "with fast-changing lifestyles, the type of diseases in the country is also changing".  Over 30,000 deaths occurred due to liver failure in the country every year. Thus there was an urgent need for popularising organ donations, he said

When asked whether other MPs will also donate their organs, Sidhu said that he knows about himself, adding that if parliamentarians were here they would have surely donated their organs.
The AORTA has even managed to get over 1,000 people to pledge their organs through an extensive publicity programme within the Armed Forces.
“Even in grief you can help,” reads a small board at the Intensive Care Unit of six Army hospitals across the country, urging relatives to donate organs of their dear departed to help others.
The “board with a silver lining”, as it is referred to by transplantation experts of the Armed Forces, invariably draws the attention of those waiting for that final confirmation of loss from doctors.
Till now, Bollywood actress Preity Zinta, former Miss India Nikita Anand and Gul Panag, and many army officers had already pledged their organs for donation.
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