KARACHI: Pakistan’s electricity regulator has issued sweeping new rules requiring power distribution companies to compensate customers in cash for slow repairs, unresolved complaints and delayed new connections, according to a notification made public this week.
The document, titled the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority Performance Standards (Distribution) Regulations, 2026, was issued under the Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power Act, 1997, and takes effect immediately, the notification said.
One provision, requiring distribution companies to build biannual physical inspections of large industrial meters into their operations, will not take effect for two years, according to the document.
The 69-page regulation replaces or updates NEPRA’s earlier customer-service benchmarks for the country’s distribution utilities, known as DISCOs, and introduces detailed, per-fault compensation amounts for the first time alongside broader company-wide reliability targets.
Compensation for slow repairs
Under the new rules, distribution companies must pay affected customers directly through their electricity bills if repairs or complaint resolutions run past fixed deadlines. For example, utilities have four hours to fix a blown fuse for urban customers and eight hours for rural customers; missing that window triggers a payment of 50 rupees per day to the affected customer.
Failures to repair line or cable breakdowns, or to replace failed transformers and switchgear, carry similar daily payments of 50 to 100 rupees, according to a compensation schedule attached to the regulations.
Larger penalties apply to bigger service failures. Utilities that fail to complete network upgrades needed for a new connection, or that miss deadlines for resolving voltage-fluctuation complaints requiring system reinforcement, must pay up to 200 rupees per day to the customer and 100 rupees per day to each additional consumer affected by the same fault, the schedule shows.
The regulations state that any compensation, fines or penalties utilities pay under the new rules cannot be passed on to consumers through electricity tariffs and must instead be absorbed by the distribution company from its allowed profit margin.
Reliability limits and blackout caps
The regulations also set annual caps on how often and how long customers can lose power. Urban customers served at low voltage, for instance, are limited to six unplanned long-duration outages a year totaling no more than 26 hours combined, while rural customers at the same voltage level face a cap of 30 outages a year totaling up to 88 hours, according to the order.
Separate limits apply to planned outages, which utilities must schedule with at least 48 hours’ notice and, where possible, avoid overnight in winter and around midday in summer.
Distribution companies must also keep voltage within 5% of standard levels for at least 95% of customers and maintain power factor and frequency within technical bands set by NEPRA’s Distribution Code, the regulations state.
Smart meters, safety and load-shedding rules
The rules formalize standards for Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or smart meters, capping the allowable annual defect rate at 2% of installed units and requiring utilities to close 100% of smart-meter alarms within eight hours in urban areas and 24 hours in rural areas.
Large industrial consumers must have their meters physically inspected every six months to check for tampering, though NEPRA may waive that requirement once it is satisfied that automated tamper-detection technology is reliable, the one provision in the regulations that comes into force after a two-year delay rather than immediately.
On safety, the regulations require distribution companies to report any accident linked to their equipment or work sites to NEPRA within 24 hours and submit a full investigation report within 30 working days. Utilities found to have caused a death, injury or property damage through non-compliance face fines and are required to compensate victims or their families, the notification states.
The rules also set out a strict priority order for rotational load-shedding, or scheduled outages during power shortages, when instructed by the national grid operator. Under that order, residential and commercial feeders would be cut first, followed by agricultural and industrial feeders, with feeders serving schools, hospitals and defense installations shed last, according to the regulations.
Quarterly scorecards and grading
Starting from the first full quarter after the notification takes effect, each distribution company will be scored quarterly on a 100-point scale covering supply reliability, consumer service, technical quality and, eventually, smart-meter performance, and assigned a letter grade from A (“Excellent”) to D (“Non-Compliant”), the regulations say.
Utilities scoring below 60 will need to submit a corrective improvement plan and explain the shortfall to NEPRA within 15 days; those whose reliability score alone falls below 50% face a show-cause notice regardless of their overall grade, according to the text. The regulations specify that these graded consequences will not be enforced until the fifth quarter after scorecards begin, to give companies time to establish baseline data.
