Background: The red blood cell surface has a system of antigens on them which constitute the Blood group system. Blood Group is an inherited trait in Mendelian fashion; there are 33 well defined blood group systems. But only ABO and RhD blood group status of the recipient and blood donor are taken into account in Transfusion Medicine.

Aims: The aim of study was to determine the ABO and Rh blood group distribution patterns in blood donors at Rural region of central Maharashtra.
Design: A retrospective study was carried out at blood bank of Rural based Medical college & Hospital at Warudi, Jalna (Central Maharashtra), India, for a period of 5 years from January 2013 to December 2017.

Materials and Methods: The study included 2,531 blood donors. Slide agglutination method with antisera ABO and Rh (Tulip diagnostics Ltd.and Span Diagnostics) was used to do ABO and Rh typing, and if any doubt persisted it was confirmed by tube agglutination method.

Results: The age group of predominant donors ranged between 18-25years (68.03%). Number of male donors surpassed that of female donors, with a ratio of 229:1. Blood group B (32.16%) was the most commonly encountered followed by ‘O’ (29.04%) and ‘A’ (26.31%) and AB (12.48%) which was the least common. The prevalence of Rhesus (Rh) positive was 94.47% and negative was 5.53% respectively.

Conclusion: It is really very important to know the distribution of blood groups in various populations which would help the blood banks and transfusion service policies and would contribute significantly to the National Health System. We carried out this study to determine the frequency of blood groups in our region for the same purpose.

Keywords: ABO; Blood Groups; Blood Donors; Rural (Central Maharashtra) India; Rhesus.