200 units electricity rule: govt to end six-month penalty, may raise protected limit to 250

Crossing 200 units by a single unit will no longer lock a household out of the protected electricity tariff for six months, if a change Power Minister Awais Leghari described in the Senate on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, goes through. He said the government has decided to end the slab rule that punishes such consumers and expects to finalise the new plan in about one and a half months.

What the 200-unit rule does today

Homes that use up to 200 units a month sit in the protected category and get a subsidy that Dawn put at about Rs 13 a unit. Use 201 units in any month and the bill moves to the unprotected rates, which Dawn reported can reach Rs 33 a unit, and the home loses the protected rate for the next six months even if its use drops back.

PML-N Senator Abid Sher Ali raised the issue through a calling-attention notice. He told the house that going from 200 to 201 units pushed the per-unit charge from about Rs 15 to Rs 30, and asked why a 201-unit home was billed as if it sat in the 400-unit slab.

The two options on the table

Leghari said the ministry is weighing two changes:

1. Raise the threshold from 200 to 250 units.
2. Scrap the six-month bar, so a home gets the protected rate in any month it keeps use at or under 200 units.

He called the six-month penalty "a genuine problem", Dawn reported, and said a separate system that gives relief by income rather than units used is being built.

Why the subsidy is being narrowed

The minister said protected consumers rose from about 10 million to 20 to 25 million in two years, largely because of rooftop solar: some homes that used 700 to 800 units now draw only 200 from the grid to qualify. Geo News quoted him putting the number under 200 units at about 20 million. He said giving all of them the same discount was not fair, since the government pays a 65% subsidy to protected consumers whether they are rich or poor, and the new mechanism would limit it to people below the poverty line and lower-middle-income homes.

What it means for your bill

Nothing changes on your next bill: no notification has been issued, and the minister gave no start date beyond the six-week estimate. Until then, the six-month rule still applies, so a home near the line should watch its meter in the last week of the billing cycle. You can see where your monthly units land with our electricity units calculator and estimate the bill on either side of 200 units with the electricity bill calculator. If solar is how you are staying under the line, the solar payback calculator shows how the numbers change if the subsidy goes.

The wider power-sector numbers

Leghari also told the Senate that circular debt has fallen to about Rs 1.67 trillion and the government aims to clear it within four years, after which the Rs 3.23-a-unit debt servicing surcharge would also go. Distribution company losses, including theft and unrecovered bills, fell from Rs 360 billion last year to Rs 325 billion this year, he said, against Rs 591 billion in 2024. He acknowledged those savings have not yet reached consumers' bills.

Separately, at the National Energy Summit in Islamabad, Geo News reported him saying the first request for proposals for a competitive electricity market has been issued and wheeling charges have been cut from Rs 28 to about Rs 11 to 12 a unit.