Eyes on the Highway: RAAHI National Truckers’ Eye Health Programme-Learnings and Reflections

Approximately 1.3 million people die in road accidents globally and one out of ten people killed in road accidents is from India. As per Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH) Report-2019, as many as 1,51,113 people were killed in road accidents and nearly 415 people die every day on roads in the country.  Sightsavers India, in an effort to address the need gap, launched and scaled up National Trucker’s Eye Health Programme (RAAHI) across states in India along with Golden Quadrilateral Highways. Over the next five years, from 2017 till 2022, the journey has been quite a learning experience! Starting from an isolated vision centre, RAAHI has been able to reach out to 0.54 million truck drivers plying along the Golden Quadrilateral, North-South and East-West Highways in India through 19 vision centres and 39 camp locations across 54 cities in 16 states.

This report attempts to capture the journey of the RAAHI programme between 2017 and 2022 by reflecting on the programme’s achievement vis-à-vis the gaps, challenges, and learnings. It explores the key innovations and design elements in the RAAHI programme to identify some of the best practices and learnings for sharing within the organization and with extramural stakeholders.