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Call to make eye testing in schools compulsory in State

Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

For a cause: Hema Malini, MP and Brand Ambassador of Vision 2020, lighting a lamp on the occasion of the World Sight Day as Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi and others look on at KIIT in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. —

BHUBANESWAR: Every school must conduct eye test for its students once in a year to prevent child blindness and ensure better future for them, said R.D. Thulasi Raj, president of Vision 2020, a global initiative for right to sight.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of the celebration of the World Sight Day here on Thursday, Mr. Thulasi Raj said: “If a child having low visibility remained untreated for long, he faces lot of hardship. So does his family and the community as a whole.”

“Eye testing in schools should be made compulsory. It is not at all expensive. Though teachers are not very interested to take up the job, the State Government can issue a directive asking schools to make their own arrangements for annual tests,” he said.

“Some 8,000 in one million children live with blindness in our country. More than half could have been easily avoided. They suffer due to malnutrition and congenital problems. Had intervention been made earlier, they could have led a normal life,” he said. The theme for this year’s celebrations was Vision for Children.

Participating in the celebrations, veteran actor and brand ambassador for Vision 2020 Hema Malini said she was ready to donate her eyes. Everybody should take care of their eyes as it was nature’s gift, she said. Mr. Thulasi Raj said in the 11th Five Year Plan, there was a big budgetary provision for establishing one advanced eye care centre for every two-crore population and one vision centre for every 50,000 population. The Union Government approved a five-year plan for eye care in the country wherein the annual outlay would be some Rs. 350 crores and roughly Rs. 250 crores in a year would be given to the NGO sector to promote all kinds of eye care, he said.

The Vision 2020 was launched in 1999.

“We have made good progress. When we started, the blindness globally was 45 million. In India, it was 14-15 million. A study was done two years ago. We found that globally blindness has come down to about 37 million and to 11 million in India,” Mr. Thulasi Raj said.

As regards Orissa, blindness prevalence in the State was a bit higher compared to other States.

“In India, cataract operations in one million population are about 5,000 in a year, 2,000 to 2,500 in Orissa alone,” he said.

The State needed eye collection of 8,000 to 10,000 every year and should have four world-class eye banks having 10 eye collection centres to deal with the situation, Mr. Thulasi Raj added.

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