ISLAMABAD, Oct 24: A syndicate of country’s three major banks have provided a Rs four billion short-term financing facility to the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) to help meet its working capital requirements.

The syndicate, comprising of Habib Bank Limited (HBL), National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and United Bank Limited (UBL) have disbursed their shares of Rs 1.5 billion, Rs 1.7 billion and Rs 720 million respectively, says a press release issued here on Thursday by the Habib Bank.

A signing ceremony in this regard was held on 14th at Karachi.

Earlier, on 8th the federal government had approved Rs eight billion additional supplementary grant for the KESC to help pay off its liabilities to Wapda.

The government had previously approved Rs 30 billion Rs 15 billion each for Wapda and KESC — to help improve their financial position.

The process of restructuring of the KESC was moving before its eventual privatisation. However, the issue has now been left for the future political government, for which $150 million were also offered by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The Nepra had also allowed in September last an average 6.5 per cent increase in consumer tariff to KESC. The increase varied for various tiers ranging between 27 paisa per unit for domestic consumers to 36 paisa for industrial consumers.