Twenty-three villages of Changlang and Namsai districts in Arunachal Pradesh were declared avoidable blindness-free under the National Programme for Control of Blindness.

Deputy chief minister Chowna Mein announced this during a function at the Arunachal University of Studies here on Friday.

Of the 23 villages, 20 are in Bordumsa, Diyun and Innao circles of Changlang district and three in Namsai district.

The avoidable blindness-free status for these 23 villages was achieved under the Avoidable Blindness Free Arunachal (ABFAR) project, a joint venture of the state National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment (NPCB & VI) in partnership with Chandra Prabhu Eye Hospital in Assam’s Jorhat, Operation Eyesight Universal, an NGO, and Seeing is Believing (Standard Chartered Bank) on private-public partnership mode.

Mein credited the achievements to ASHA workers, healthcare functionaries at the grassroots level, and to all the stakeholders of the NPCB programme. He said it was the result of team effort and expressed hope that the project would be adopted and extended to make the whole of the state avoidable blindness-free.

He proposed the establishment of a zonal eye specialist centre at Namsai for the entire eastern zone of the state as people often travel to other parts of the country for eye check-up and treatment, incurring huge expenses.

The deputy director-general of NPCB & VI under Union ministry of health and family welfare, Dr Sangeeta Abrol, lauded the achievement. She said the project would be a role model and a pilot project for other states. She appreciated ASHA functionaries in the state and assured them of all possible assistance from the ministry in future endeavours of the programme in the state.

Earlier, state programme officer of NPCB & VI, Dr Taba Khanna, highlighted the achievements made under the programme in the state. He said Arunachal was the second highest blindness prevalent state after Assam in the country and efforts were on to remove this tag.

State BJP president Tapir Gao, Namsai MLA Chau Zingnu Namchoom, Namsai deputy commissioner Tapashya Raghav, Arunachal University of Studies vice-chancellor V.K. Kwatra and Arunachal University of Studies chairman Ashwin Lochan also spoke on the occasion.