Bhubaneswar : On the completion of 20 years in 2022, Drushti Daan today commemorated its anniversary with release of a book “drushti daan: Success Story of an Eye Bank”. The book was released by the Governor of Odisha, His Excellency Prof. Ganeshi Lal at the Jayadev Bhavan. Speaking on the occasion, Prof. Ganeshi Lal said that the success of Drushti Daan is due to the sheer dedication, passion and volunteerism of its members.

Drishti Daan has in its 20 years of existence collected over 11400 corneas, of which over 9200 have been utilised. In view of no semblance of any eye donation prior to Drushti daan’s establishment, this is no mean achievement. It has striven to give relief to the corneal blind even in the remotest, inaccessible regions of the state. Scrutinising drushti daan activities, the motto has been of high standard performance levels of eye banking to achieve high utilization rates, integrity and transparency at all levels.

The Chief Speaker at the function, Dr. Prashant Garg, Executive Chairman, L.V.Prasad Eye Institute lauded the efforts of Drushti Daan and said that in Eye Banking Circles, Drushti Daan is recognised as the best private eye bank of Odisha and one of the leading eye banks in the country.

Dr. K.C.Padhy, President of Drushti Daan said that the organization has played a key role in creating awareness of eye donation. Today, the eye bank supplies quality cornea on equitable basis, free to any state government hospitals and on a nominal processing fee to other non-government hospitals subject to their having government permission to have cornea transplant units. The partners in the success story were felicitated.

There are currently an estimated 18 million blind people in India, among these, 12 million suffer from corneal blindness. There is further addition of 40,000 to 50,000 corneal blind persons every year. Majority of these persons are affected in the first and second decade of life. Restoration of their vision is possible only through transplantation of cornea from donated eyes. There is currently no substitute for human corneal tissue. Corneal transplants are the most common human transplant which enjoys a 95% success rate.

Others present on the occasion included Dr. Sujata Das, Ms. Sudha Sundarajan, Ms Nalini Sarma, Ms. Renu Narula, Mr. Rupesh Doshi, Anil Dhir and Sudesh Ralhan.