Eye Health makes an important contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG) and cuts across many of the SDGs; from poverty reduction to economic growth and employment, to education, gender and reducing inequalities.At 8 million, India houses the 2nd highest number of blind people in the world, where the cataract is found to be the major cause (refractive error is the second leading cause).  

Netra Vasant - Rural Eye Health Programme is one of the largest programmes of Sightsavers India. The objective of Rural Eye Health Programme is to improve vision-related quality of life through strengthened eye health systems with a focus on poor and deprived sections of the society. Under this program, primary activities include systems strengthening of eye care services, service delivery, multi-level advocacy, generation of awareness on eye health among rural community, partnerships development and evidence generation. The project also seeks to increase the Cataract Surgical Rate (CSR) in the selected districts to contribute to a reduction in the prevalence of blindness. With a humble beginning in just 33 districts in 2014-15, the programme has expanded its operations to over 100 districts in 8 states of India. To ensure maximum outreach to the remote locations, more than 96 vision centers are operational which serve as the primary eye health clinics in the communities. On an average we reach out to 3.5 million people every year with our rural eye health initiatives in the 8 states. 

• Setting up Primary Eye Care Centres
• Community Mobilisation  and Sensitisation
• Training of ASHA and Community Health Workers on Primary Screening
• Outreach/Screening camps
• Referrals to Secondary hospitals
• Distribution of Glasses
• Equity in coverage – district level intervention approach
• High Impact (HI) districts with a focused 5-year saturation model