India – land of contrasts

More than 40 percent of the population works in agriculture. At the same time, the software industry and the service sector have been developing positively for years and are ensuring a strong upturn. People in rural areas are feeling little of this development – the upturn is mainly benefiting the well-educated population in the cities.

Over 120 languages are spoken in India. However, only 75 percent of Indians can read and write.

Around 400 million people in India would need glasses. Some studies even estimate up to 500 million, which corresponds to around a third of the population.

This puts India's villagers at a triple disadvantage:

• Optical care is worse there than in the cities, the journey to the city is expensive and often too far
• Due to precarious working conditions and lower incomes in rural areas, glasses are almost unaffordable
• Visual impairments are generally more prevalent in the rural population than in urban areas

The consequences of poor vision are not only serious in India: the global loss of income due to uncorrected defective vision is about as high as the amount spent worldwide on development aid.

Uncorrected visual impairments have long-lasting consequences for those affected: For example, people who do not wear glasses, despite having low vision, are three times more likely to be unemployed or at risk of being involved in a car accident. In 2017, our team offered free eye tests to 50 truck drivers on the outskirts of Delhi – more than half of them needed glasses, many with –3 and –4 diopters. On this day, we not only helped some truck drivers to see well – but probably also prevented one or two accidents.