Overview of the NPCBVI Update
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has released the latest figures on eye banking under the NPCBVI. The data, presented in the Lok Sabha by the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Shri Prataprao Jadhav, highlights steady growth in infrastructure and tissue collection across the country.
Key Developments (2022‑25)
- Number of functional eye banks rose to 396 nationwide.
- Annual cornea collections increased from 62,370 (2022‑23) to 66,434 (2023‑24) and further to 69,848 (2024‑25).
- Financial assistance under NPCBVI continues for infrastructure, equipment, and training of ophthalmologists and eye‑bank technicians.
- Free supply of cornea storage medium to government eye banks has been reinforced.
Important Facts
The programme’s core components include:
- Infrastructure development: Grants for building or upgrading eye‑bank facilities.
- Equipment procurement: Microscopes, cryopreservation units, and transport kits.
- Human resource capacity building: Training modules for ophthalmologists and technicians.
- Awareness & donation promotion: Campaigns to increase voluntary eye donation.
UPSC Relevance
Understanding the NPCBVI framework is vital for GS 1 (Health & Social Issues) and GS 2 (Polity) as it illustrates:
- How central schemes are implemented through state cooperation.
- The role of public‑private partnerships in health infrastructure.
- Policy‑driven approaches to address preventable blindness, a key social indicator.
- Budgetary allocations and monitoring mechanisms for health‑related programmes.
Way Forward
To sustain the upward trend, the following steps are recommended:
- Expand eye‑bank coverage in underserved regions, especially in the North‑East and tribal districts.
- Strengthen community‑level awareness to boost voluntary eye donation.
- Integrate eye‑bank data with the National Health Mission’s digital health platform for real‑time monitoring.
- Encourage research on advanced corneal preservation techniques to increase graft success rates.
Continued focus on these areas will help India move closer to the WHO’s target of eliminating avoidable blindness by 2030.