Maharashtra Government Partners with OneSight EssilorLuxottica and Ratna Nidhi Trust for Student Eye Care

The Maharashtra government has signed an MoU with OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation and Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust to screen two million government school students for vision issues over a three-year period. The initiative will span from August 2026 to June 2029 and includes the provision of 100,000 free prescription spectacles.

MUMBAI — The Maharashtra government’s School Education and Sports Department has entered into a tripartite partnership with the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation and the Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust to expand access to eye care for children in government schools across the State.

A memorandum of understanding for the initiative was officially signed in Mumbai. According to project details, the large-scale school eye health program is designed to screen two million students studying in classes 5 to 10 across Zilla Parishad and government-run institutions.

The scheduled timeline for the program runs for three years, spanning from August 2026 to June 2029.

Under the division of responsibilities outlined in the agreement, the State's Department of School Education and Sports will facilitate teacher training and coordinate vision screening activities across Maharashtra. The Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust will act as the implementation partner, deploying qualified optometry teams to conduct refraction services and manage the logistics of spectacle distribution.

Meanwhile, the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation will contribute technical expertise and support the initiative by providing 100,000 free prescription spectacles to students identified with refractive errors.

This new agreement builds upon an existing collaboration between the stakeholders that has been active since 2019. Previous efforts under this partnership have screened more than 680,000 children across 800 schools in 18 districts, resulting in the distribution of over 63,000 spectacles to address vision-related learning barriers.

"Public-private partnerships of this scale demonstrate how structured collaboration between government bodies and specialized foundations can systematically address foundational community needs. By targeting two million students between 2026 and 2029, this initiative directly tackles health hurdles that impact educational outcomes. For enterprises and social organizations, aligning operational expertise with public infrastructure creates measurable, long-term social impact while ensuring resources reach grassroots levels efficiently." — Dr. Shishir Gupta, Founder & CEO, StartupLanes