President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Abuja commended the Chanrai family for their commitment to the development of Nigeria through long-term investments, and humanitarian services in providing free health services to the underprivileged.
Speaking at the commissioning of the Tulsi Chanrai Hospital, President Buhari said the family’s investments in the country since Nigeria’s independence clearly shows a dedication to the wellbeing of Nigerians, especially by channelling resources into making life better for many, mostly the poor.
In a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, the President said “I am very pleased to note their contribution to check and prevent avoidable blindness by restoring the vision of more than 120,000 Nigerians, free of charge.
“These services will now be enhanced with this state of the art hospital in the heart of Nigeria,’’ he said.
He said the Chanrai family was initially involved in trading and industrial manufacturing, with plants in various parts of the country engaging in processing, and has branched into humanitarian activities.
“The vision of the Tulsi Chanrai Foundation is to ‘build a healthy Nigeria’. Since its inception, the Foundation has been instrumental in implementing several projects related to Primary Health Care, Eye Care and Safe drinking water, throughout the country.
“In addition, I am informed that the foundation is engaged in rehabilitation of boreholes program across Nigeria, covering 32 states. So far, they have rehabilitated more than 7000 boreholes providing safe drinking water to more than 3 Million Nigerians,’’ the President added.
In his remarks, Mr Jagdish Chanrai, Chairman Tulsi Chanrai Foundation, said more than 60 per cent of services will be targeted at the poor, especially in restoring sight and correcting defects, noting that the hospital, which commenced services in January, had attended to 6, 400 patients and performed over 1000 eye surgeries, with 850 of them provided free.
He said the Chanrai family had touched the lives of about 7.5 million Nigerians with various humanitarian projects.
The hospital is managed by Aravind Eye Care System of India and will be largely operated by a Nigerian team of 30 eye professionals who had been trained in India.