KARACHI, Oct 10: Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) today signed another Memorandum of Understanding under its Social Investment Program with ‘Behbud Association’ to provide absolutely free of cost electricity to the charitable organisation providing multi-faceted services to the needy and underprivileged sections of society particularly women and children since 1970.
The MoU brings the number of KESC’s empowerment partners to eight; other welfare institutions include Indus Hospital, Marie Adelaide Leprosy Centre, Layton Rahmatulla Benevolent Trust, The Citizens’ Foundation, Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, ‘Karwan-e-Hayat’ and The Kidney Centre. Under the SIP, KESC pays electricity bills of welfare entities in part or in full to subsidize their energy cost in recognition of the noble causes these institutions are pursuing.
Behbud Association runs its programs from three separate locations ranging from primary and secondary schooling, adult literacy courses, computer courses, various health clinics, vocational trainings including different processes in textile and leather manufacturing, at the same time, encouraging entrepreneurship amongst the individuals they reach . Behbud Association also provides rehabilitation for destitutes. Their focus is on community development through an integrated approach so as to alleviate poverty, illiteracy, ill-health and economic deprivation of the lower-income groups. Their projects reached close to 125,000 people in the last year while indirectly benefiting to over a million.
The MoU was signed by Mr. Nayyer Hussain, CEO of KESC and Ms. Tanvir Iftikhar Khwaja, President of Behbud Association. Mr. Hussain in his message on the occasion appreciated the commendable services that Behbud has been providing to the weaker sections of society and said that KESC has a clear vision of playing the role of a dependable development partner in the City’s ever-growing advancement.
Ms. Khwaja expressed her gratitude to Mr Nayyar Hussain for provision of free electricity. She indicated that ‘this benevolent act of KESC will go a long way in providing quality service in the field of education, health and vocational training to the needy of the area.’
KESC’s Eligibility Criteria for its Social Investment Program is as follows:
KESC would evaluate such institutions purely according to the set criteria and provide the relief on merit. In order to promote energy conservation, KESC would also carry out an energy audit at these institutions and recommend necessary actions to conserve energy in line with best practices.
To qualify for the empowerment, it would need to be a charitable organization operating in the public welfare domain in the health or education sector located and operative within the limits of KESC distribution territory. It must be an independently registered NGO (non-governmental organization) with declared Articles and Memorandum of Association, whose accessibility of operations must be open to general public without any specific community focus or restriction.
The qualifying entity must be providing at least 70 per cent of its services to deserving individuals free of cost or at minimal charges acceptable to KESC. In general, the entity must be a non-profit institution, totally non-political and non-government institution, and not associated or linked to any business house. Magnitude of operations of such entity would need to be relatively large, having direct annual impact on minimum of 5,000 individuals belonging to underprivileged segments of the society. Such institutions would generally enjoy good reputation among public and their credibility would be beyond any doubt.