In India there are about 10 million people who are blind (NPCB-WHO). Out of this 80% of the blindness is preventable or curable. There are 2.5 million corneal blinds that require corneal grafting. Some of them are their 1^st or 2^nd decade of life. These visions can be improved by corneal transplantation. In this operation the damaged opaque cornea is replaced by a healthy one, taken from the eye of a deceased person. There is a severe lack of availability of donor eyes in India. That’s why only 6-7 thousand corneal grafting operations are done every year. But unfortunately about fifteen to twenty thousand new victims of corneal blindness are added each year to the already waiting 1 million corneal blinds. There are enough qualified eye surgeons but the corneal grafting operations cannot be performed because of the scarcity of donor eyes. This is where eye donation offers hope. One eye donation can give vision to 2 persons.

Sahiyara Medicare Foundation Trust established Matushree Gomtiben Ratanshibhai Chheda – SAHIYARA EYE BANK in October 2008 with the aim that every corneally blind person gets vision. Sahiyara Eye Bank is a non-profit organization committed to the noble cause of Eye Donation by creating awareness, educating & motivating the public.
The Sahiyara Eye Bank has the infrastructure, facilities & staff expertise for eye banking, from core activities like cornea retrieval, evaluation and distribution, to wider functions such as training, research and the conducting of public awareness campaigns.