Country Map & Statistics
Map of India © Sightsavers
Year Started: 1966
Population: 1.1 billion
% Below Poverty Line: 35
Average Yearly Wage Rate: $480
Life Expectancy: 64 years
Infant Mortality: 9.3%
Literacy Rate: 61%
Our work in India
At a glance
Being the world's second most populous country presents its own problems in delivering health care, but together with our partners Sightsavers has made great progress in India.
Sightsavers in India
Since 1966 we have supported thousands of local partners to become self-sufficient in providing eye care services, helped treat over 20 million eye patients and brought eye care to some of the least-served areas of the country.
We have also revolutionised the affordability of cataract surgery in the developing world with the establishment of a unit in India to produce high-quality, low-cost plastic lenses. In addition, many thousands of irreversibly blind people have received rehabilitation and educational support to enable them to lead lives of independence and dignity.
Accessibility victory in India!
One of our partners in Maharashtra, India, St Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC), is celebrating a major victory with regard to people who are blind having equal access to services.
A new vision
When Santosh Devi started to lose her eye sight it put a huge strain on her and her family. The 38-year-old mother of three lives in Lukhlada village in Uttar Pradesh, north India, with her husband, children, and her husband’s two sisters and mother.
Advocating for education
Jo Mitchell, our Schools Development Manager, shares her recent experience in India
India ratifies disability convention
India has taken a positive leap towards improving the rights of disabled people, by ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Lifeline Express chugs into town
Sightsavers helps launch the world's first hospital on a train, in Andra Pradesh, India
Diabetic retinopathy unit opens in India
Blindness as a result of diabetes rising in the developing world, and Sightsavers has responded by opening a diabetic retinopathy unit at Sankara Eye Hospital in India
A confident young man
Completely blind from the age of six, Chandrakumar missed out on receiving an education. His life changed dramatically as a teenager when he started receiving vocational training from a Sightsavers partner.
Rain stops play
Sightsavers sponsors victorious blind cricket team from India, who beat England 5-0.
A push in the right direction
Sightsavers’ Lee Rodwell describes his recent trip to India's southernmost states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where he saw our partners helping people who are blind to lead independent lives
Positive exposure
A film festival in India is challenging discrimination by only screening films in which the hero or heroine is disabled.
After the rain
Life was on the up for Hathi Singh. Although totally blind he was running a successful shop which he set up with help from Sightsavers' partner the Society to Uplift Rural Economy (SURE) who'd given him money to start up the business and taught him the skills he needed to run the shop on his own.
Filming our work in India
Earlier this year, London-based film crew Silverfish contacted Sightsavers and offered to make a film about our work. A few months later, Vicky Astbury, Communications Officer for Sightsavers set off with the crew to central India to the newly formed state of Chhatisgarh. This is the story of the trip.
Unified Solutions.