New Project

'Centre of Excellence' in Advanced Eye-care Coming Soon in Kolkata

Kolkata-based Susrut Eye Foundation & Research Centre, a non-profit organisation specialising in eye-care, plans to set up a 'centre of excellence' for advanced eye-care and research services, in Salt Lake, with an investment of Rs 20 crore.

Susrut has entered into a joint venture with the West Bengal Government, which has allotted the land for Susrut to construct the 35,000 sq ft center. The centre will house a super-specialty paediatrics ophthalmology clinic, and specialise in areas like advanced vitreo-retinal service, and vision enhancement, teaching, training and vision research.

"Construction work for the project will start soon and is expected to be operational by 2010," said Sunil Chandra Bagchi, President, Susrut Eye Foundation.

Commenting on the development, Bagchi said, "Susrut has grown from strength to strength, and has completed 10 successful years of service. We are now ready for our next phase of growth.”

The project would be a major stride in self-reliance in eye-care as World Health Organisation (WHO) has predicted that the world's blindness will be doubled by the year 2020 and has called for urgent action. Nearly 80 per cent of blindness is avoidable and out of every four visually challenged, one is an Indian. It is estimated that over 12 million people in India are visually challenged and out of this around 2.5 million are in Eastern India. Susrut has catered to over 1 lakh patients till date.

EH News Bureau