The collection of cornea for transplantation across India has reduced drastically in 2012 compared to the previous year primarily due to delay in registration and renewal of licence for eye banks, said Dr M Srinivasan, Director, Rotary Aravind Eye Bank, Madurai.
He said that the government set a target of collecting 45,000 corneas between April 2010 and March 2011 and easily achieved it. The target was enhanced to 60,000 for 2011-2012. But they managed to collect only around 30,000 eyes, said the doctor. He said that he received a large number of complaints from eye banks regarding the delay in processing registration for starting new eye banks till six months ago when he was the president of Eye Banks Association of India. Even now, several eye banks complained of delay, he said.
While admitting to the delay, S Paranjothi, Director of Medical Services, attributed it to a shortage of staff.