Fervent election campaign in favour of Burma's ruling junta for the 2010 polls has begun in full swing with the junta-sponsored Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) offering free eye surgery to the people from October 29 at the General Hospital in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, northern Burma, said hospital sources.

Sources close to the Hospital's Surgery room said, the surgical operations will continue for a week. Till now, about 300 eye patients, mainly elderly people were operated upon. Forty patients were attended to each day and all patients had one or two lenses inserted as required. The patients had to stay for at least a week at the hospital following the operation, nurses said. A group of four eye specialists from Mandalay are performing the operations.

The total cost of eye surgery in the hospital or in a private clinic for a person would have been at least 100,000 Kyat (est. US $82), said hospital sources. But the USDA's free eye surgery service has absorbed the costs with an eye on the elections, sources said.

Most eye patients are ethnic Kachins and they hail from the areas around Myitkyina, Waingmaw, Mogaung, Monyein and Chibwe in Kachin State.  They were also offered free meals while they were in hospital by the USDA, added hospital sources.

The Kachin State's USDA had announced a free eye surgery programme at the Myitkyina General Hospital but people wanting to avail the offer have to bring recommendation letters from the USDA offices in their areas, according to USDA sources.

Last month, Brig-Gen. Thein Zaw, the junta's Kachin State's organizer and Minister of Post, Communication and Telegraph visited ethnic Kachin Christian churches in Waingmaw and Bhamo Townships and gifted landline telephones and money, according to residents in those townships.