Two five-year agreements with India’s apex eye institute will bring primary eye care, vision rehabilitation services and a new CVI center, serving a population size of over half a million residents in Delhi NCR, place AI-powered smart vision glasses in the hands of those who need them most, and establish the Vision-Aid Sarla Dayal CVI Resource Center for children with cerebral visual impairment.
LEXINGTON, Mass. / NEW DELHI – In a quiet office at the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences this spring, two signatures set in motion something remarkable: a five-year partnership between Vision-Aid, the Lexington, Massachusetts based nonprofit, and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, India’s most prestigious medical institution. Together, the two organizations have committed significant resources to a shared and audacious goal: that in the communities in the Delhi / NCR region, no one should lose their sight needlessly, every visually impaired individual has access to resources that help them regain independence and no child who struggles with blindness caused by Cerebral Visual Impairment should be left behind (CVI is the leading cause of childhood blindness in India).
For AIIMS, the partnership extends the reach of an institution that has anchored India’s fight against blindness for nearly six decades. Established in 1967 and named for India’s first President, the Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences is the Government of India’s apex organization under the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment, a 300-plus bed centre of excellence that treats some of the country’s most complex eye conditions. For Vision-Aid, which has spent two decades building programs that enable, educate and empower the visually impaired across India, it is one of the most significant institutional partnership in its history. The collaboration rests on three pillars.
Project DRISHTI: Ten Integrated Vision Centres serving a population of 500,000+
The first pillar, Project DRISHTI, takes world-class eye care out of the hospital and into the neighborhoods where it is needed most. Over the next five years, AIIMS and Vision-Aid will establish ten Integrated Vision Centres across Delhi and the National Capital Region, created by upgrading existing primary and urban health centres in underserved communities. Each centre will offer vision screening, refraction, subsidized spectacles, screening for diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma, free medicines, and a direct referral pathway to AIIMS, including free advanced services for the under-privileged – such as cataract surgeries, assistive devices and vision rehabilitation at the Dr. R.P. Centre.
The numbers tell the story of the ambition: a catchment population of five lakh (500,000) people, 120,000 beneficiaries expected over five years, 24,000 screenings a year, 40,000 spectacles prescribed, and 2,500 free cataract surgeries and thousands of assistive devices and rehabilitation sessions for visually impaired from under-privileged backgrounds. Behind each number is a grandmother who can thread a needle again, a schoolchild who can finally read the blackboard, a rickshaw driver whose livelihood is saved by a fifteen-minute surgery he could never have afforded.
How does an Integrated Vision Centre work? Each centre is co-located inside an existing government primary health facility, an Ayushman Arogya Mandir, so that quality eye care arrives at the very place the community already goes for its everyday health needs. Dedicated service teams, each comprising an ophthalmic technician, a data entry operator and a field assistant, rotate through the network on a fixed weekly schedule under the supervision of a program manager and AIIMS faculty, and a single centre can register as many as fifty patients on a service day, an expected footfall of about two thousand patients a month across the network. A patient who walks in is registered, given a visual acuity test, refraction and a basic eye examination on the spot; affordable spectacles are dispensed at subsidized cost; and anyone who needs advanced care, from cataract surgery to diabetic retinopathy treatment or vision rehabilitation, is referred directly to the Dr. R.P. Centre at AIIMS. Community health workers and trained volunteers carry eye health education into homes and schools, so each centre serves not only those who walk through its doors, but the entire neighborhood around it.
Project SATHI: 550 AI Smart Vision Glasses and Assistive Devices
The second pillar, Project SATHI, embraces a simple truth: for people whose vision cannot be restored, technology can still restore independence. Under the partnership, hundreds of AI-powered Smart Vision Glasses and similar assistive devices, including digital magnifiers and other expensive technology which is usually out of the reach of the poor, will be provided to visually impaired patients identified by AIIMS through clinical and socio-economic assessment. These wearable devices read text aloud, recognize faces, and describe surroundings, giving students, job seekers and elders a new measure of freedom in daily life in all major Indian languages.
Both Project DRISHTI and Project SATHI are made possible by the extraordinary generosity of an anonymous donor, whose quiet compassion will touch more than a hundred thousand lives. Vision-Aid and AIIMS express their deepest gratitude for this support.
The Vision-Aid Sarla Dayal CVI Resource Center: Hope for thousands of Blind Children
The third pillar is a new CVI Resource Center. Cerebral Visual Impairment, or CVI, has quietly become the leading cause of childhood visual impairment in India and much of the world. Children with CVI often have perfectly healthy eyes, yet their brains cannot make sense of what they see. Without specialized diagnosis and therapy, many are written off as unreachable. With it, they can learn, play, go to school and thrive.
The new Vision-Aid Sarla Dayal CVI Resource Center at the Dr. R.P. Centre, supported by a commitment over five years, will be a first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary facility at AIIMS, bringing together pediatric ophthalmologists, neurologists, optometrists, therapists and special educators under one roof. It aims to serve thousands of children with CVI, ages six months to sixteen years, and to become a national model that can be replicated across India.
The center is made possible by the generosity of the Dayal family, and it carries with it a story of love and legacy. It is named in honor of Sarla Dayal, and it stands as a living tribute to Dr. Yogeshwar Dayal, a former member of the Vision-Aid Board who recently passed away. Dr. Dayal was a distinguished alumnus of AIIMS, and his wife, Dr. Shyam Dayal, is also an AIIMS alumna. During his term on the Advisory Board he gave Vision-Aid years of wise counsel, warmth and service, and his belief in the dignity of every human being now takes physical form in a center, named in his mother’s honor, that will change children’s lives for generations. Vision-Aid remembers him with profound gratitude and respect.
The Dayal family in a statement said ““Following his retirement from professional practice in 2017, Dr. Dayal remained actively engaged in community and charitable initiatives. A devoted supporter of Vision-Aid, he generously contributed his time, counsel, and encouragement to further the organization’s mission of serving individuals with visual impairments and empowering communities through service.”
In Their Words
“The Dr. R.P. Centre has always believed that the best eye care is the care that reaches people where they live. This partnership with Vision-Aid allows us to take comprehensive services deep into underserved communities of Delhi NCR, and to build, for the first time, a dedicated multidisciplinary home at AIIMS for children with cerebral visual impairment. It is a model we hope the whole country will follow.”
– Prof. Dr. Praveen Vashist, Professor and Officer In-charge, Community Ophthalmology, Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS New Delhi
“Cerebral Visual Impairment is now one of the leading causes of childhood visual impairment, yet it often remains under-recognized. Early identification and multidisciplinary intervention can significantly improve a child’s functional vision, learning, and quality of life. At AIIMS, our goal is to provide standardized, evidence-based assessment and holistic management for every child with CVI. Through our collaboration with Vision-Aid and the establishment of the Sarla Dayal CVI Resource Center, we aim not only to expand access to high-quality clinical care but also to develop a national centre of excellence for clinical services, training, research, and rehabilitation in Cerebral Visual Impairment.”
– Prof. Rohit Saxena, Professor and Incharge, CVI Services, Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS New Delhi
“As an AIIMS alumnus and a member of Vision-Aid’s Advisory Board, I am delighted to see two of my favorite organizations come together in this meaningful partnership. AIIMS and Vision-Aid share a deep commitment to service, innovation and dignity for people with visual impairment, and this collaboration has the potential to touch many lives.”
– Dr. Suraja Menon Roychowdhury, Vision-Aid Advisory Board Member and AIIMS Alumnus
“Partnering with AIIMS, the most respected name in Indian medicine, is a milestone moment for Vision-Aid. These programs unite the best of both worlds: AIIMS’s clinical excellence and Vision-Aid’s two decades of experience in rehabilitation, assistive technology and training. Together we will reach people who had nowhere else to turn.”
– Lalit Sudan, President, Vision-Aid USA
“In all my years with Vision-Aid, I have rarely seen a partnership hold such promise. AIIMS is the gold standard of Indian medicine, and together we will touch lives at a scale we once only dreamed of.”
– Puran Dang, Chairman Emeritus, Vision-Aid
“Every vision centre, every pair of smart glasses, every child who walks into the CVI center represents a family whose future has just changed. That is what this partnership means.”
– Veena Handa, Vice Chair, Vision-Aid
“When we started Vision-Aid twenty two years ago, we dreamed that one day no child in India would be denied a future because of a vision impairment. Watching AIIMS and Vision-Aid teams work side by side, made possible by the support of an anonymous donor and seeing the Dayal family’s love turned into a center of hope for a thousand children, we feel that dream drawing closer. We are humbled and grateful.”
– Revathy Ramakrishna and Ramakrishna Raju, Founders, Vision-Aid
A Partnership of Many Hands
Vision-Aid gratefully acknowledges the AIIMS teams on the ground, led by Prof. Dr. Praveen Vashist, Mr. Amit Bharadwaj, Ms. Meera Sharma, Prof. Dr. Rohit Saxena and Prof. Dr. Vivek Gupta and Director Prof. Dr. Radhika Tandon, of the Dr. R.P. Centre, whose vision and dedication shaped these programs, and the Vision-Aid India team, including Mr. V.L. Narasimhan (Member Secretary), Mr. Harish Harisharan (Executive Director) Ms. Devi Udayakumar (Head of Vision Rehabilitation) and Mr. Anshuman Agrawal (Sr. Program Manager, North India Programs), who will work shoulder to shoulder with AIIMS to bring them to life. The first vision centres and the CVI center are already beginning to serve patients in the coming months, with the partnership formally effective April 2026.
About the Dr. R.P. Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS New Delhi
Established in 1967, the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, is India’s apex institution for ophthalmic patient care, education and research, and the Government of India’s apex organization under the National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment.
About Vision-Aid
Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, Vision-Aid is a volunteer-driven 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to enable, educate and empower the visually impaired to live with independence and dignity. Working with over 25 leading eye hospitals and more than 70 blind schools, Vision-Aid reaches more than 100,000 beneficiaries annually across 75-plus locations in India. The organization holds a four-star rating from Charity Navigator and is a recognized leader in applying AI and assistive technology for the visually impaired, and in serving children with CVI. Learn more at www.visionaid.org. V
Vision-Aid is gearing up for its major annual event in Andover, MA on Sunday July 26th. For more details of the spectacular Broadway style show “Brothers in Arms – The Lions of Sivaganga” , visit www.visionaid.org/event
