The two eye banks in the state, in Patna and Rajgir, hold bleak hope for the sightless.

However, a proposed eye bank at the regional institute of ophthalmology in Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) can turn things around.

Bihar, with a population of around 10 crore, does not have a single functional eye bank. Call it the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities or the state government, the eye bank at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), opened in 1986, and the one at Rajgir run by a private organisation, launched in mid-2000s, are not functional since inception.

The irony is that the authorities concerned at PMCH have no clue about how to make it functional.

When contacted, Dr Umesh Prasad Sinha, the head of the PMCH eye department, admitted the existence of the eye bank and also that people were employed at the facility, but it was not functional.

Asked about the reason, Sinha said he was clueless about how to run the eye bank. Instead Sinha sought suggestions from this correspondent get it running. Sinha said: “We do have donors and even recipients. People register for eye donation but the actual problem arises after the death of the person because his/her family members are reluctant to donate the eye. At present, we have 1,000 donors registered with us and another 1,000 people registered as recipients. However, every time we go to collect the eye, the family members do not allow us to collect it from the body.”

This has rendered the cornea transplant facility futile at PMCH and people are forced to go to other places like New Delhi and Tamil Nadu. “Those who can afford to travel outside the state, get their transplant done. But people belonging to low socio-economic group suffer the most because they cannot afford to go to other states. Why is not there any political will in this case? Last year, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi had announced that eye banks would be opened in all six medical colleges of Bihar,” said Dr Sunil Kumar, an eminent ophthalmologist and the director of Sanjeevani Eye Hospital.

Holding out hope for the sightless, IGIMS director Dr Arun Kumar said he received some funds for opening an eye bank a few months back but he had to return the money because of lack of space to start the facility. “However, if things go according to plan, we would soon have an eye bank. A regional institute of ophthalmology is running at IGIMS, under the control of the central government. We have submitted a detailed report to the health minister for its upgrade. The same report has been submitted to the Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad around six months ago. If the central government approves the plan and provides grant for it, we would have many facilities at our regional institute of ophthalmogy, including an eye bank. We have qualified doctors at the institute though we lack an eye bank,” he said.

Nalanda Medical College and Hospital deputy superintendent Dr Santosh Kumar told The Telegraph there is no eye bank at the hospital and he denied the possibility of having one in near future.