VIJAYAWADA: Officials of the Medical and Health department are gearing up for the successful implementation of ‘YSR Kanti Velugu’ (eye screening), a prestigious programme of the Jagan Mohan Reddy government to take up comprehensive eye screening for entire State population, set to be launched on October 10. The scheme will be implemented in two stages — first one in two phases and the second in four phases.
In the first stage, children in the 5-15 age group will be covered and the remaining population in the second stage. Apart from conducting eye tests and distributing spectacles to the needy people, the government will conduct eye surgeries. The officials, as per the preliminary analysis, came to the conclusion that around 13 to 14 lakh eye surgeries have to be conducted under the scheme.
The government has already allotted Rs 560 crore for Kanti Velugu scheme.
Disclosing details to TNIE, Principal Secretary (Medical and Health department) KS Jawahar Reddy said that they had conducted meetings with NGOs and 15 firms expressed interest to associate with the government in implementing Kanti Velugu. LV Prasad Eye Institute will be the technical partner and 15 institutes including Aravind Eye Hospitals, Shankara Eye Foundation and Asram Medical College came forward to join hands with the government.
“The programme will be conducted in two stages. The first stage, intended to cover children in 5 to 15 age group, will be implemented in two phases. The second stage, in four phases, will cover the remaining population,” Jawahar explained.
In the first stage beginning from October 10, the doctors will conduct preliminary eye test on children from Class I to X and the exercise will be carried out for 5 to 7 days.
From November 1, the government will conduct detailed test on children for two months to identify the defects and resolve the same by supplying spectacles and performing surgeries, if needed, Jawahar observed.
The second stage will commence on February 1. It will have four phases (one phase in six months) and the exercise will continue for two years.
“In the meantime, we are readying the hospitals, equipment and doctors. We are expecting that 10 lakh surgeries will have to be performed on elders and 3-4 lakh surgeries on children. We are making arrangements accordingly,’’ he said.