INDIA

Updated June 2024

With one of the largest populations living below the poverty line in the world, India is home to 15 million people who are blind. Tragically, 90 per cent of cases are preventable or treatable.  

In India, 65 per cent of eye surgeries occur in the private or voluntary sector, while only 35 per cent are provided in government hospitals. Through our partnership with India’s government at the national and state levels, we are helping make primary care available to more people through India’s primary care system.

We are in our 61st year of preventing blindness and restoring sight in India, where we have partnered with communities in 90 districts across 17 states. Through our network of more than 31 partner hospitals and 114 vision centres, we are focused on:

• Strengthening health systems and ensuring facilities have the resources, training and expertise to provide quality, affordable eye health care.
• Establishing vision centres as local eye health hubs in the community.
• Reaching people in the community with eye health screenings, health education and referral for treatment if necessary.
• Public education around topics like nutrition, immunization, prenatal and postnatal care, and other health issues.
• Supporting schools with quality, cost-effective refractive services and eye health education.
• Early detection and treatment of eye diseases such as cataract, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and early childhood diseases like retinoblastoma and retinopathy of prematurity.

2023 highlights

Our programs in India reached remarkable milestones in 2023. We screened more than 1.7 million people for eye health conditions through our partner hospitals – a 62 per cent increase from the previous year.

Similarly, our partner hospitals’ commitment to addressing the backlog of surgical cases resulted in a 52 per cent increase in the number of eye surgeries provided. These efforts combined with our community outreach and education activities led to the declaration of 86 villages as avoidable blindness-free, and another 150 villages are ready to receive the same designation in 2024.

Together with our partners, we established 12 more vision centres and two mobile vision centres (vans). Collectively, these centres serve a population of 900,000.

We continue to collaborate with state governments to integrate eye health care into the primary health care system in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Madhya Pradesh. In 2023, we launched our fourth “Integrated People-centred Eye Care Project” in an additional four districts of Madhya Pradesh, with support from the National Health Mission and the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment. Together we are establishing vision care facilities within already existing government health centres, improving access to eye health care services in underserved communities.

Our teams are in many cases the first point of contact with our communities of work, which provides us with a rich source of data for research purposes. In fall 2023, we organized a national workshop to disseminate the findings of a project focused on addressing the barriers to eye health faced by women and girls. As a result, the educational materials that were developed for this project were adopted by other states/programs. We are grateful to Norquest College and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for their partnership in hosting the workshop, which was supported by the Fund for Innovation and Transformation, made possible through Global Affairs Canada and the Inter-Council Network.

1,710,882

Eye exams

182,395

Sight-saving surgeries

200,850

Pairs of eyeglasses dispensed

17,115

Students screened through school eye health programs

149,887

People underwent Cataract Surgery

715,787

People screened through door-to-door surveys

Learn more about our work in India in 2023.

1,056,076

Eye exams

119,979

Sight-saving surgeries

208,633

Pairs of eyeglasses dispensed

33,571

Students screened through school eye health programs

30

villages declared avoidable blindness-free

747,000

People screened through door-to-door surveys

Learn more about our work in India in 2022.

An eye health ambassador’s long journey to restored sight

The role of eye care in preventing poverty

New patient transport vehicle in Meghalaya