ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The Karachi Electric Supply Company on Saturday rejected a report launched by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SPDI), terming it as one-sided based on frivolous allegations against the KESC.

The utility company challenged the findings of SDPI report that it believed was unaware of facts. It lamented that SPDI did not verify the information from KESC despite a formal offer by the company.

The SPDI report alleged that underperforming KESC that incur high system losses despite injection of huge subsidies failed to achieve targets aimed at the time of its privatisation.

The KESC maintained in a press release the company did not receive any subsidy for its operations from the government after privatisation.KESC also said that SDPI did not contact any KESC official or bothered to refer to information available on KESC’s website of published annual accounts duly audited by KPMG.

The spokesman of KESC said that facts have either been twisted or concealed to present a distorted picture of the company.

“It is important to mention here that KESC, under its present management, has injected around $1.5 billion in shape of equity and debt, this includes $300 million of fresh equity that is part of the total $361 million investment, agreed and committed by the KESC management,” the spokesman of KESC said.According to KESC, it was due to the performance of its management that IFC, ADB, OeKB, along with local and foreign banks have shown confidence in KESC and provided funding for many completed and ongoing projects.

The company said that it was also working on alternative energy options, which includes converting cattle manure from Landhi Cattle Colony and organic food waste to produce electricity and bio-fertilizer.

The KESC also plans to set up 300MW coal-fired power plant at Thar. For this purpose, a Joint Development Agreement between KESC and Oracle Coalfields has already been signed.

The privatised power utility criticised SDPI and said that its researchers did not obtain these easily verifiable facts.

It was due to the huge and unprecedented investment that KESC was able to add an additional generation capacity of 1,000 Megawatts in a short span of time, overhaul old plants and transmission lines, significantly enhance the distribution capacity and considerably improve its technical and service capability.

While, the $450 million, flagship gas-fired 560 MW power plant at Bin Qasim is already functional and its combined cycle efficiency is one of the best in the region.

With reference to the KESC’s operations the release claims: “KESC has chalked out a ‘Load shedding policy’ which differentiates between low loss, medium loss, high loss and very high loss areas”.

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