New Delhi, June 3 -- The government is drafting new regulations to allow organ harvesting after a patient's heart stops beating, in a major policy shift that could help reduce the acute transplant shortage in the country, according to two government officials.

The National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (Notto), under the health ministry, is framing guidelines for Donation after Circulatory Death (DCD), a system used in Europe and North America, which expands the donor pool beyond the current brain-stem death criteria. It is also planning standardised procedures for brain-stem death donations and organ-swap programmes, filling procedural gaps that have left hospitals without clear operating norms.

The country urgently needs th...