India’s 9.8 million cataract surgeries in FY 2024–25 mark a meaningful milestone, but access to consistent care remains uneven, particularly in rural and remote regions where gaps in service delivery persist.
Sustaining this progress will require more than increasing the number of surgeries. It will depend on building a delivery model that is dependable and equitable, supported by stronger primary care and a greater focus on early intervention. The real measure of progress will be how consistently care reaches the people who need it most.
Why sustainability is critical in India’s eye care infrastructure
Sustainability in eye care extends beyond environmental responsibility. Instead, it is a matter of whether eye care services are reliable, accessible, and within reach, especially in underserved communities.
Remote primary facilities regularly contend with power failures, rising costs, and staffing shortages, pushing patients toward larger hospitals for conditions that could have been handled closer to home. The answer lies in stronger primary infrastructure, grounded in early diagnosis, energy-efficient design, and decentralised delivery. In resource-scarce settings, that is the only standard that matters: whether care shows up when it is needed.
Learning from global best practices
Global models have already proven that sustainable infrastructure is an economic multiplier. Statistics provided by the IAPB and the WHO show that every ₹1 spent on eye health can generate a return of ₹16 in economic productivity, largely because treating vision problems allows more people to continue working and earning. Other global trends, such as “Race to Zero” in healthcare, emphasize the shift from high-energy, centralized hospitals to efficient, decentralized units.
While traditional models often focus on high-volume services in urban centres, sustainable models place greater emphasis on early intervention at the community level. For these models to work in a country as geographically diverse as India, they must be low-maintenance, community-based, and resilient to local conditions.
Green vision centers: A model for sustainable eye care delivery
A practical example of this approach can be seen in green vision centers (GVCs), which provide primary eye care services in underserved areas. With solar power and energy-efficient lighting, these centres are able to function reliably even in places with unstable electricity. Being locally staffed and community-based, they help build local capacity and ensure that services continue without frequent disruption. So far, 53 such centres have been established across India. They use digital tools and programmes such as REACH (Refractive Error Among Children) to conduct vision screening and outreach, often using low-emission transport such as e-bikes. This allows services such as refraction, basic eye care, spectacle distribution, and teleconsultation to be provided closer to where patients live, including in geographically challenging areas.
Strengthening last-mile access through sustainable models
While sustainability in healthcare is often discussed in environmental terms, in eye care infrastructure, it has two meanings: environmental measures such as solar power, energy-efficient equipment, and reduced dependence on diesel generators, but it also means keeping services affordable, reliable, and accessible over time. In many remote areas, power outages, high costs, and limited staff disrupt services and force patients to travel long distances for treatment that could be provided locally.
Sustainable infrastructure helps address these challenges in practical ways. Energy-efficient systems reduce operating costs, and solar power keeps essential equipment running during power cuts, allowing services to continue. This reliability enables local centres to reach more patients. In 2024 alone, these facilities recorded over 552,000 patient visits and screened millions of people. By bringing services closer to communities, eye care becomes more accessible and dependable.
Partnerships and the way forward: Scaling sustainable eye care
Building sustainable eye care infrastructure is not something any single institution can achieve alone. It requires active collaboration between governments, hospitals, training institutions, and non-governmental organisations to align policy, funding, and implementation in a way that actually reaches underserved communities.
The path forward runs through stronger community-based eye care and the integration of eye health into national planning. By 2030, expanding local eye care networks and green vision centres will be central to making reliable services a routine part of the health system rather than an exception.