To analyse the causes of visual impairment amongst the patients coming for the visual handicap certificate and its application in eye health planning to prevent the blindness. A retrospective data analysis of medical records of 553 people who had applied for the visual handicap certification. Examination was done by the ophthalmologists appointed for the handicap board. BCVA < 20/60 to 20/120 in better eye was included in visual impairment Cat I(40%)and BCVA20/200 or less is blindness category II to IV(75%to100%). Data was analysed using SSPE software and Chi square test for significance. The prevalence of male patients was significantly higher than that of females (p<0.05), majority of them belonged to age group of 16 year to 45 years of age, 332 (60.03%) individuals had mild visual Impairment(< 40%), in 59(10.66%) individuals moderate visual impairment (40%) was found; in162(29.29%) individuals had sever visual impairment to blindness, over all phthisis (p=0.0001)was the most common cause followed by corneal opacity(p=0.0249)and Amblyopia (p=0.03). Most of the causes are preventable and some of them are emerging as complications of cataract surgery, increased road traffic accidents and occupational hazards. Visual handicap registers are useful for the rehabilitation of visually impaired individuals and to assess the pattern or causes of blindness in particular area. The most common etiological factors causing visual impairment in our study are preventable so we propose the empowerment of the school health system and general health delivery system, early detection of amblyogenic factors and its timely treatment, applying strict safety precautions to factory workers who are prone to ocular injuries and increased safety for road traffic in Northern part of Maharashtra.

Background: In India the coverage and outcome of cataract management are through camps and hospital undertaking rural cataract surgical services. There are varied outcomes of cataract surgery in population based studies within our country while cataract surgical outcomes have inbuilt dependency on various factors. National program for control of blindness and visual impairment aims in improvement of vision of the cataract patients. Thus evaluating cataract outcome would help top strengthen the national program.Methods: The study was part of population based blindness survey carried out among 40 years and above rural population in Dhule district of Maharashtra during 2019. In the survey 2370 villagers, 40 years and above were surveyed for blindness prevalence by 30 Cluster sampling technique having 79 peoples from each cluster. Collection of baseline data with information of eye care services and ophthalmic examination was done.Results: Prevalence of cataract in 40 year and above population in study was 20.78%. In present study predominant barrier in cataract operation in 71.1% participants for not having consultation was belief it to be destiny or God’s will.  20.3% cataract patients with visual impairment had visual acuity of 6/60 and 18.4% had less than 3/60 visual acuity. Maximum participants had cataract operated in government hospital 61.7%. In the study cataract surgical coverage was 72.7% by eyes and 81.7% by person for visual acuity <3/60.Conclusions: Efforts to increase cataract surgical coverage would help to reduce the prevalence of visual impairment due to cataract.