Vrindavan Eye-Care Academy Opens New Pathways For Rural Youth

Tanu Yadav, 21, from Mathura, finished her graduation in 2022, and almost immediately, the familiar chorus began at home: it was time to get married. She wasn’t ready. At 19, she still wanted to study further, but the family didn’t have the money to support that. The plan stalled there—until a friend mentioned the Standard Chartered–Shroff’s Eye Care Education Academy inside Brij Hospital in Vrindavan.

That changed the trajectory for her. The academy offered allied ophthalmic paramedic training, with long- and short-term courses, and the fees were not a barrier. She went for the interview with her parents, cleared it on merit, and enrolled in the vision technician programme. Her course ends in two months, after which she will move into a placement at an eye-care hospital or vision centre.

She isn’t the only one rewriting her path. Nutan, 21, and Mamta Raghav, 19—both from Mathura—are training as medical record assistants on the same campus. The entire course offered by them is free of charge due to a grant from Standard Chartered Bank, thus providing a chance for these people to enter a job market they would not have otherwise thought of.



A huge gap in the availability of skilled eye care professionals is experienced by India, and some of the preventable causes of blindness still exist in rural regions where people have no access to specialised treatment and hence are uneducated. The Vrindavan Academy directly addresses this through capacity building, employment generation, and community-centric care delivery.

The academy represents the second phase of the partnership between Standard Chartered and Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital (SCEH) under the Bank’s flagship ‘Seeing is Believing’ initiative. The Standard Chartered–Shroff’s Eye Care Education Academy in Vrindavan was inaugurated today, following the successful rollout of the first academy in Delhi. The new eye care training academy will adopt a hub-and-spoke system, wherein localised skill-based training in eye care will be given to ophthalmologists and paramedics. The Delhi facility will be the centre for curriculum development, mentoring, and technical support. This new academy will not only improve the quality of eye care accessibility but also create the basics for education and livelihood in the impoverished rural areas.

Karuna Bhatia, Head of Sustainability, India, Standard Chartered, said, “The Delhi academy has proven that skill-building in eye care can be a powerful tool for both public health and social empowerment. With the launch of this academy in Vrindavan, we are taking this impact deeper into rural India, enabling young women to build careers while improving eye health access in their communities. This is therefore a more holistic approach to a healthcare issue.”

Since 2014, Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, with support from Standard Chartered, has provided comprehensive eye-care services across Mathura through a state-of-the-art centre in Vrindavan and a network of vision centres and community outreach programmes. Over the last decade, more than 65,000 sight-restoring surgeries have been performed, and 17 lakh beneficiaries have been reached.

In the coming three years, more than 12,000 young people will be trained by the Vrindavan academy in various areas of eye care. Training of 70 ophthalmologists, 600 mid-career ophthalmologists, and 500 allied ophthalmic paramedics is among the key deliverables, with over 70% of trainees getting jobs after training— half of them women. The creation of a digital learning platform and short-term courses will help about 11,000 trainees to get a better skill set for providing eye-care services and to do so more effectively. The National Council of Vocational and Research Training (NCVRT) has accredited all programmes, thus confirming the observance of national standards in vocational healthcare education. The academy at Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital has attained Advanced Level Accreditation from the Ophthalmology Foundation for the International Ophthalmology Residency Training Programme, further emphasising the international quality and professional rigour of the courses offered.

Dr Umang Mathur, CEO, Dr Shroff’s Charity Eye Hospital, added, “This expansion is a testament to our vision of creating a skilled, compassionate, and locally rooted eye-care workforce. The support from Standard Chartered has been pivotal in scaling our efforts and bringing quality care closer to the last mile.”