THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Ranchi, Sept 6: The Eye Donation Awareness Club and Kashyap Memorial Eye Bank will organize the Blindfolded Run for Vision on September 7 at the St. Xavier’s College campus.
Health Minister Irfan Ansari will attend the event as the chief guest, while Finance Minister Radhakrishna Kishore will be present as the special guest.
Families of those who donated their eyes posthumously, along with organizations promoting eye donation, will also be felicitated on the occasion.
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The Run for Vision has carved out a special identity for itself. It is the only initiative in the country that has been consistently raising awareness on eye donation for the last 23 years, including the Blindfolded Run for Vision for the past seven years.
Over the years, several prominent leaders from Jharkhand—including veteran tribal leader Shibu Soren, former Chief Ministers Arjun Munda and Babulal Marandi, and even President Droupadi Murmu—have participated in the run and pledged to support eye donation, urging people of Jharkhand to come forward for the noble cause.
The event is organized by an institution founded by ophthalmologists who pioneered corneal transplantation in Jharkhand and Bihar. Kashyap Memorial Eye Bank, the state’s leading eye bank, has so far conducted about 1,015 corneal transplants, including 490 in the last five years alone.
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A key achievement highlighted by the organizers is that the eye bank has managed this work without requiring any financial burden on the government for infrastructure or manpower.
Despite such efforts, the need for corneal transplants in India remains far greater than the supply. While around 1 crore people die every year, only about 50,000 corneas are retrieved through posthumous eye donations. The country requires approximately 2.5 lakh corneas annually, but only 30,000 transplants are performed.
