KARACHI: Haroon House, the main office of the Dawn Media Group, has been without power since 3pm on Tuesday and running on generators ever since.

According to a senior official in Dawn, the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) was informed about the problem soon after it happened and they have been trying to fix it without much success so far.

“We have contacted just about everyone in the KESC but they haven’t been able to fix the problem as they say that it is due to a cable fault for which they have started digging work now.

“They also say that the main substation located inside the Haroon House has obsolete parts that are not readily available with them,” said Dawn’s publisher Khwaja Kaleem Ahmed on Wednesday evening.

About the newspaper’s backup power supply, he said that Haroon House’s generator had been running non-stop for over 30 hours and would have to be switched off after printing on Thursday morning.

“Our generator needs rest but we could not even arrange for a backup in the shape of a rented generator due to transporters’ strike,” he said.

Meanwhile, Tayyab Sohail, the manager of electricity system at Haroon House, said the building’s main high tension (HT) cable had rusted along with other things, as discovered by the KESC team working to restore power.

“Apart from the rusted cable, the insulator of HT panel’s circuit breaker is not working. The current transformer [CT] is also damaged, but the KESC says these parts are obsolete and not available with them at the moment,” he informed.

“Right now there is some digging going on as they are trying to reach the main cable to look at the fault there.

“They have taken back the panel equipment with them and are trying to repair it as they do not have spares,” he added.