LESCO Per-Unit Price: The Residential Slab Rates and a Worked Example

"What is the per-unit price?" is the most natural question about a LESCO bill — and the honest answer is that there isn't one number. Pakistan's residential tariff is progressive: each block of units has its own rate, your bill mixes several blocks, and then taxes are layered on top. This guide lays out the slab tables our estimator uses and works one example bill end to end so the mechanism is obvious.

The two rate tables

Which table applies depends on your consumption history. Protected consumers are households that have stayed at or below 200 units per month; everyone else is unprotected (the standard residential tariff).

Vintage note, stated plainly: these are the NEPRA-notified residential (non-ToU) rates as last reviewed in July 2024. Base tariffs are revised at least yearly and the FPA changes monthly, so treat every figure here as indicative and confirm against your printed bill — the same warning our estimator prints next to its results.

Progressive means blended, not flat

The slabs apply in sequence, not retroactively. Use 300 units and you are not billed 300 × Rs 34.26 — you are billed 100 units at the first rate, 100 at the second, 100 at the third. Crossing a slab boundary by five units makes only those five units more expensive. The panic about "crossing the slab" is justified on annual protected status, but within the unprotected table a small overshoot costs a small amount.

A worked example: 300 units, unprotected

1. Energy charges: 100 × 23.59 + 100 × 30.07 + 100 × 34.26 = Rs 8,792.
2. Surcharge: 300 × 3.23 = Rs 969.
3. Electricity duty: 1.5% of energy charges ≈ Rs 132.
4. FPA: whatever this month's notified figure is × 300 — copy it from your last bill; it can be positive or negative, so we leave it at zero here.
5. Fixed items: Rs 35 PTV fee + Rs 25 meter rent.
6. GST: 18% on the electricity charges ≈ Rs 1,786.

Total: roughly Rs 11,740 before FPA — an effective Rs 39 per unit, a third above the highest slab rate touched. That gap between slab rate and effective rate is the tax stack, which the taxes guide itemises. Run your own numbers in the estimator; it prints this same itemised breakdown for any consumption.

Why your neighbour's "per-unit price" differs from yours

• Different consumption puts their top units in a different slab.
• Protected vs unprotected status changes the whole table.
• A different billing month means a different FPA.
• Time-of-use metering (ToU) bills peak and off-peak hours at different rates entirely.

Comparing bills only makes sense line by line — which is exactly how the bill-reading guide takes the page apart.