Standard Chartered and Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust launch Rural Eye Care Education Academy in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh
This Academy will focus on eye health of the rural workforce
Aims to train more than 20,000 eye care professionals, 50 % of them women, in 3 years
27 June 2026, Chitrakoot, India – Standard Chartered and Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust (SSSST) today announced the launch of Standard Chartered – Sadguru Eye Care Education Academy in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh. The launch is in line with Standard Chartered and SSSST’s efforts to further strengthen rural eye health systems in India. This initiative, to be implemented through SSSST’s flagship institution Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya (SNC), aims to build a skilled, gender-inclusive eye care workforce and expand access to quality eye care across underserved rural and remote communities.
The Standard Chartered–Sadguru Eye Care Education Academy was inaugurated by Rajendra Shukla, Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister and Minister, Department of Public Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education, Government of Madhya Pradesh. The occasion was graced by Rajiv Nayan Choubey, IAS (Retd.), Former Member, Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, India, Standard Chartered, Dr Elesh Jain, Director and Executive Trustee, Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust were present with other senior leaders from Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya.
Over the next three years, this Academy will train more than 20,000 eye care professionals, including ophthalmologists, allied ophthalmic personnel, community-based cadres, and eye care managers. Women, primarily from the underprivileged rural backgrounds, will make up for at least 50% of ophthalmology and management trainees, and over 70% of allied ophthalmic students. To secure future livelihoods, all long-term graduates in allied health and management will be given guaranteed employment, largely within SNC’s extensive rural service network. Training delivery will combine long-term residential programmes, short-term clinical and managerial courses, simulation-based skill labs, and digitally enabled learning platforms, enabling standardised instruction, continuous assessment, and scalable delivery across geographies.
For over five decades, SNC has delivered high-quality, affordable eye care across rural Central and Northern India. Backed by sustained support from Standard Chartered’s ‘Seeing is Believing’ programme, the partnership has screened more than 850,000 patients, dispensed over 200,000 spectacles, and performed over 68,000 sight-restoring surgeries across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and West Bengal.
Under Standard Chartered’s ‘Seeing is Believing’ partnership, Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya has established 64 Vision Centres across rural regions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. These centres serve as vital primary care access points. Notably, an increasing number of these facilities are managed by women vision technicians.
Moving forward, the partnership is committed to transitioning toward fully women-led Vision Centres, simultaneously improving rural health delivery and driving economic empowerment for women. These 64 centres form a core part of SNC’s broader network of 126 Vision Centres, creating one of the largest integrated primary care systems in the region and providing a robust platform for workforce training.
Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, India, Standard Chartered, said, “At Standard Chartered, we believe lasting impact comes from strengthening systems, not just delivering services. By supporting this Eye Care Education Academy, we are investing in a rural-embedded, gender-inclusive workforce model that builds skills, creates livelihoods, and expands access to quality eye care where it is needed most. This initiative reflects our long-term commitment under Seeing is Believing to create sustainable and scalable eye health solutions.
So far through our existing five eye care academy centres set up with other NGO partners, over 2400 professionals have been trained and placed while another additional over 480 are undergoing training,” Bhatia added.
Dr. Elesh Jain, Director and Executive Trustee, Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust, added, “The Eye Care Education Academy goes beyond training to create a skilled, employable, and gender-inclusive rural workforce. Through technology-enabled, simulation-based learning and digital platforms, the Academy delivers high-quality education at scale. With Standard Chartered’s support, we are building a future-ready model that integrates education, service delivery, and systems strengthening to sustainably address avoidable blindness.”
The Standard Chartered–Sadguru Eye Care Education Academy builds on the Bank’s global Seeing is Believing legacy, which has been advancing eye health for over two decades across India. The initiative reinforces Standard Chartered’s commitment to inclusive growth, gender equity, and long-term systems strengthening, while establishing a scalable and replicable national model for rural eye health workforce development.
Standard Chartered Bank has been operating in India with a continuous presence of over 165 years making it one of the oldest foreign banks in the country offering a full range of services across business segments including Corporate and Investment Banking and Wealth and Retail Banking. The Bank has an extensive branch network covering major cities. For more information, visit https://www.sc.bank.in/
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Established in 1968, Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust (SSSST) is a pioneering not-for-profit organisation and one of India’s foremost institutions in rural eye care. Through a network of four eye hospitals and an extensive primary eye care system, the Trust has played a transformative role in strengthening equitable access to eye health services across some of India’s most underserved regions. Collectively, SSSST’s eye care programmes reach over two million patients annually and include more than 2.26 lakh sight-restoring surgeries, positioning the Trust among the largest rural eye care providers in the country.
The Trust’s flagship institution, Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya (SNC), Chitrakoot, is one of the world’s leading rural tertiary eye care centres and serves as the anchor for the Standard Chartered–Sadguru Eye Care Education Academy. SNC alone records over 13 lakh outpatient visits annually and performs more than 1.64 lakh surgeries, delivering high-quality, affordable eye care through a comprehensive pyramidal service model encompassing tertiary hospitals, secondary centres, 126 Vision Centres, and large-scale community outreach programmes.
Beyond service delivery, Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust is a national leader in eye health capacity building and systems strengthening. Its training programmes have produced hundreds of ophthalmologists and thousands of allied ophthalmic personnel, many of whom serve in rural and remote geographies. The Trust is also engaged in broader rural development initiatives spanning healthcare, education, women’s empowerment, and dairy- and agriculture-based livelihood programmes, reflecting its integrated approach to health, sustainability, and community well-being.
Guided by the conviction that quality eye care is a right, not a privilege, Shri Sadguru Seva Sangh Trust continues to build scalable, community-rooted solutions that transform lives across rural India.