KESC accused of switching off generators to save fuel

While the city is experiencing an acute electricity shortage and the resultant hours-long power outages, Karachi Electric Supply Company sometimes turns off its generators to save the fuel.
This prodigal tendency of the company has further lessened capacity of its generators, which are already producing electricity far more lesser than demand of the city, Lateef Mughal General Secretary of Peoples Workers Union (PWU) of KESC told Business Recorder on Monday.
He said power plants of KESC were generating electricity below the capacity, particularly Bin Qasim Power Plant (BPP) that was, currently, generating 740 megawatts of electricity out of its total capacity of 1,050 MW.
The PWU official said six units of BPP were producing 160 MW, 80 MW, 70 MW, 70 MW, 185 MW and 185 MW respectively.
The other sources, he said, were contributing 200 MW of electricity taking total capacity of the BPP to 940 MW. He said while the total demand for the metropolis was 2,200 MW, KESC was generating 940 MW of electricity with Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) contributing 1000 MW to it.
Mughal claimed that at present the city was running short of 260 MW of power, which could easily be met, had KESC not been switching off its generators.
Also, he said, KESC was not receiving the required electricity from the private power producers, like Gul Ahmar, Tapal etc, which was another setback to the ailing power generating system of the company. The company had neither installed any electricity generating plant, as it had pledged in an agreement with the then government by the time of its privatisation, nor it had improved its power generation capacity with the passage of time, he said.
Mughal said the public utility should have increased its power generating capacity by at least 10 percent annually to meet the fast-increasing demand of this mega city, which is known as revenue engine of the country with a 70 percent revenue share. He also accused the new KESC administration of plotting to make the public utility a complete failure.
When contacted Kashif Afandi, official spokesman of KESC, rejected outright the allegation that the Company was turning off its generators to save the fuel, saying that there must be some evidence if any such thing was taking place. He also rejected the media reports that the Pakistan People's Party led government was planning to nationalise the privately-run KESC, as baseless.