Blind? You can still donate your cornea

JAIPUR: Visually impaired since childhood,

Dinesh Gurjar

, who could not himself see the colours of life, donated his eyes, cornea to be more precise, so that others can see after his death, dispelling the myth that a blind person cannot donate his eyes.

Dr

Kulwant Gaur

, an expert who encourages people to donate their eyes, said, "A blind person can still donate his cornea if he is not corneal blind."

When Gurjar was just five, he lost his vision when a doctor gave him an injection for treating fever. "That injection was the cause of my

blindness

. It was an infection or side-effect, which turned me blind," Gurjar said, who belongs to the small village of Belani in

Alwar

district of Rajasthan.

But this did not stop Gurjar from excelling in the banking and IT sectors. He joined the banking sector as a steno and became the IT head of a public sector bank in the state. He bagged the best employee award in 1997 when I K Gujral was the prime minister. Gujral had asked him to work hard to improve his cadre and climb up in his career.

Learning though trial and error, Gurjar used software to learnt IT to finally become the head of his department.

Now, Gurjar is into educating people about eye donation. On the last day of National Eye Donation Fortnight, around 2,500 people made a resolution to donate their eyes. Gurjar was the only person, who was visually impaired, to take the oath.

Seven hundred medical students, professors and general public took the oath on the last day of event organized under the banner of an NGO, Kshamata Vikas Evam Anusandhan Mandal (SAKSHAM), at Adharsh Vidhya Mandir, Ambabari in Jaipur.

Recently, a 'Feel Blindness' rally was also organised by the NGO to motivate people about donating their eyes.