Punjab Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra today said the state would be Punjab Corneal Blindness Backlog Free by December 31, 2017. 

The Minister said the health department was working 24X7 to ensure that there must not be any patient in the state suffering from blindness because of corneal disease in the eyes. Divulging further, he said in a bid to make Punjab as Corneal Blindness Backlog Free State, ‘Eye Donation Fortnight’ is being organised in all districts of state and about 1000 persons have been pledged to donate their eyes till date. 

Mr Mohindra said health department has also run a state wide campaign in which a dedicated audio-visual awareness van visited in all major cities and towns to motivate the people to donate their eyes to make Punjab as ‘Corneal Blindness Backlog Free State’. 
He said that soon state government will implement the road map concerning upgradation of the infrastructure of eye banks and capacity building of Ophthalmologists to achieve the target in a time bound manner. He said that since March 17 to June 2017, about 341 Corneas procured from the state and 212 corneal Transplant Surgeries (Keratoplasties) have successfully been conducted in registered Keratoplasty Centers.