There is a surge in the number of students and teachers visiting eye specialists for the last couple of months due to the conduct of online classes by educational institutes.

A Ludhiana-based eye specialist and surgeon, Dr Ramesh said, "Since the last three months when online classes started, the number of students and teachers visiting eye specialists have increased by 20 to 30 per cent. The reason behind this is that they work on laptops and mobiles for several hours."

Observing that most students are forced to study on mobiles, rather than laptops, which causes more harm, he said, "There are a number of mobiles in the market with poor picture quality, which affects the eyes of children. These days, we get patients who mostly complain of irritation in their eyes and troubled eyesight."

Parents too echoed the sentiments and stated that students' eyesight was being affected due to online classes. "Since the beginning of the lockdown, children have been forced to study online. Because of these classes, they started having problems with eyesight. It is the compulsion of children and us that they are forced to do online classes. Schools must also see that students are not taught continuously for 4-5 hours and they get a break in between," a parent said.

"We are having problems in our eyes due to long hours of online classes. It is our helplessness that we are forced to study online due to COVID-19," a student said.