KARACHI, Sept 30: The Karachi Electric Supply Company, under its Social Investment Plan (SIP), will provide free electricity to the Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre, which is providing specialised free medical care to the people.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, the KESC said that it would be paying 100 per cent electricity bill of the MALC.

The centre provides free medical aid to a large number of leprosy, eye and tuberculosis patients all over the country.

By the end of the last year, the MALC had treated over 800 leprosy patients, operated upon 4,575 eye patients and had registered over 10,000 tuberculosis patients.

In this connection, a memorandum of understanding was signed by KESC chief executive officer Tabish Gauhar and Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre founder member and board of governors’ vice president Dr Ruth Pfau on Sunday.

Dr Pfau in her message said that the savings generated through the subsidised electricity from the KESC would help the centre in better serving patients and providing them medicines to live in a society where they were usually treated as outcasts.

The MALC is one of the largest NGO in the country running leprosy elimination, TB and blindness control programme with its headquarters in Karachi.

It serves as a secondary referral facility for leprosy patients from all over Pakistan who are treated here for free.

Dr Pfau joined the small set-up of the MALC in 1960 as a young doctor from Germany.

She gradually developed it into the national leprosy control programme providing comprehensive care and rehabilitation facilities to patients at 157 sub-centres spread across the country.

“The KESC feels very blessed for providing a humble contribution towards the betterment of patients receiving free medical care at the MALC,” the KESC chief said.