Puneeth effect: Eye donation pledges soar

By Manjunath Hadimani | NT

Bengaluru: Call it the Puneeth Rajkumar effect. After the late actor’s eye donation, Karnataka has seen a massive surge in pledges to donate eyes, according to data available with the Dr Rajkumar Eye Bank at Narayana Nethralaya.

Puneeth’s family had donated his eyes to the eye bank on October 29 after his tragic death. Around 1,50,000 people have responded to the eye donation drive launched by the eye bank in December 2021 in honour of the late actor. This means the eye bank is receiving around 3,000 pledges every month.

Eye bank officials said prior to Puneeth’s noble gesture, they used to get only 300 to 400 pledges a month.

Even the number of eye collections has increased during this period. “Before December, we used to collect 100 eyes. But the number has increased to 200 eyes after the campaign launch,” said Veeresh, manager at the Dr. Rajkumar Eye Bank.

That is not all. The campaign has created a flutter in rural areas too. Eye bank officials now get requests from people to visit their villages. “We have visited all villages near Bengaluru now,” he said.