Background: Blood transfusion is one of the commonest and important procedures done in patient care to treat variety of disorders like accidental trauma, pre operative blood transfusion and various other hematological diseases. In India the annual requirement of blood is close to 8 million units of which only 30% is being procured from voluntary donors. Healthy young adults are more proactive and motivated to voluntarily donate blood. Medical students can form one of the important cohort of voluntary blood donors to the hospitals to which they are attached. Objectives: To assess the background knowledge and perceptions of the first year medical students about voluntary blood donation. Methodology: A self structured questionnaire was prepared consisting of questions which were used to assess the knowledge and perceptions of first year medical students regarding voluntary blood donation. The responses were analyzed using Microsoft excel and Epi Info 7. Results: All the 130 students (100%) revealed that they had heard about blood donation and entire study group knew their blood group types. 65 (50%) reported that they knew about the average amount of blood donated by the donor and 71(54.61%) cited that they had prior knowledge about the criteria for selecting a voluntary blood donor. 95.38% opined that they were willing donate blood if and when the need arises. Conclusion: First year medical students had good background knowledge about blood donation and majority of the study group were willing to voluntarily donate blood and render their service to the society.