Detailed Information Regarding Eye Donation
There are approximately 1.5 million corneal blind people in the country. Majority of them are in young age group. The sight can be restored only by corneal transplantation. Though there has been some progress in pledging of eye donation, only about 25000 eyes are collected every year in India. This is negligible compared to need of one lakh of cornea, particularly children, waiting for corneal transplantation. We need around one lakh corneas per year for transplantation purpose to clear the backlog and serve the incident cases.

Corneal blindness is important as it mostly occurs in childhood and productive adult age. Effective intervention may lead to substantial reduction in corneal blindness and reduce the demand of transplantation. Demand can be reduced by creating mass awareness amongst the people and make them aware about the causes/ symptoms and preventive eye care measure as corneal blindness is difficult to treat unlike Cataract and Refractive errors and therefore it is better to prevent the incident cases.

Almost anyone of any age can pledge to donate eyes after death. This can be done even if the donor wears glasses, has cataract or has undergone eye surgery successfully. All that is needed is a clear, healthy cornea. Eyes have to be removed within 6 hours of death. So the nearest eye bank or eye donation center must be informed immediately by the relatives of donor. In Maharashtra every District General Hospital & Govt. Medical Colleges have facilities of Eye Bank. Besides these many trust hospitals & NGO Hospitals also have Eye Bank. The persons who are interested to donate his eyes after death should contact to above hospitals & fill up the necessary form of pledging the eyes.

The donated eyes are never bought or sold. Eye donation is never refused.

Service Centers Available in Each District
Service centers available in Maharashtra

Sr no.	Name of Institute	No.
1	Govt. Medical Colleges	31
2	District Hospitals	26
3	Other Govt. Hospitals	9
4	District Mobile Units	38
5	Eye Hosp. Mandvi, Dist. Nanded	1
6	Base Hospital (Rural Hospital)	365
7	Strengthened Community Health Center (CHC)	9
8	strengthened Primary Health Center/Rural Hospital	612
9	Eye Banks	216
10	IOL Centers	209

List of Eye Banks/Eye Donation Centers registered under Human Organ Transplant Act in Maharashtra State.

Region Wise

Regions	Total Performance upto (2007–08)	Total Performance uptoJune(2008–09)
Thane Circle	186240	37467
Nasik Circle	106632	16307
Pune Circle	175424	49659
Aurangabad Circle	43347	8760
Latur Circle	50691	8489
Akola Circle	64354	7004
Nagpur Circle	85617	13483
State Total	712305	141169

District Wise

Sr.No	District	Total Performance (2007–08)	Total Performance upto Junem(2008–09)
1	Raigad	15205	2771
2	Ratnagiri	9461	1826
3	Thane	56055	8389
4	Ahmednagar	25058	5801
5	Dhule	12694	3108
6	Nandurbar	8978	0
7	Jalgaon	24632	4388
8	Nasik	35270	3010
9	Pune	85642	24094
10	Solapur	28280	7703
11	Satara	18390	4371
12	Kolhapur	24243	5673
13	Sangli	18869	7818
14	Sindhudurg	5757	932
15	Aurangabad	20996	4641
16	Jalna	10199	2288
17	Parbhani	7626	1234
18	Hingoli	4526	597
19	Latur	15417	2161
20	Beed	14518	2924
21	Nanded	12931	2134
22	Osmanabad	7825	1270
23	Akola	11157	2168
24	Washim	6185	412
25	Amravati	18375	2261
26	Buldana	13039	611
27	Yavatmal	15598	1552
28	Bhandara	7755	1130
29	Gondia	5634	566
30	Chandrapur	10974	1115
31	Gadchiroli	5506	193
32	Nagpur	43722	8934
33	Wardha	12026	1545
34	Mumbai Corporation	99762	23549
State Total		712305	141169