Karnataka wants your electricity bill to show how many hours the power was off
The same draft would let a householder certify their own wiring, work that now needs a licensed contractor's signature.
Karnataka's electricity regulator wants every bill from a smart meter, the kind that sends readings to the power company on its own, to carry two numbers: how many times the supply failed, and how many hours it was off in total. The details of each failure would have to sit on the company's website, in a file anyone can download.
That requirement is one line in a 122-page draft that would fold six separate rulebooks into one.
Karnataka's power companies work today from a supply code written in 2004 and conditions of supply from 2006. Separate regulations cover security deposits, the interest paid on them, recovery of expenditure, and appeals against a bill for unauthorised use. The draft repeals all of them and starts again.
Households with rooftop solar would get one more line on the bill: how much the panels made, how much went out to the grid, and how much the house took back.
You sign off your own wiring
Before a new connection is switched on today, a licensed electrical contractor signs the wiring and test certificate. The draft moves that signature to the person paying for the connection.
For a low-tension installation up to 150 kW, meaning the ordinary voltage that serves homes and small businesses, the owner inspects, tests and certifies the work. The same applies when supply restarts after a shutdown of six months or more. The draft's own charge table stops billing a household for its first 3 kW, so the threshold sits far above any house.
Three days in a city, fifteen in a village
Where no new line or substation is needed, the draft gives the power company a deadline to connect you:
- three working days in metro cities
- seven working days in other municipal areas
- fifteen working days in rural areas
If the service line has to be extended, the limit becomes 90 days. If a substation has to be built, it becomes 24 months.
For a 5 kW home connection in Bengaluru (our arithmetic): the draft's table makes the first 3 kW free, then charges Rs 1,300 for each unit of load above it, so Rs 2,600. Bengaluru adds Rs 2,000 a unit where underground or bundled cable is used, another Rs 4,000. The service line comes to Rs 6,600, before any deposit.
The way in closed before the hearings opened
Written objections had to reach the Commission within 30 days of the draft appearing in the state gazette on 14 August 2026. That window shut on 13 September. What is left is the public hearings, and the Commission has listed six, each at 11 am:
- Belagavi, 7 October 2026
- Sirsi, 8 October 2026
- Hubballi, 9 October 2026
- Bidar, 14 October 2026
- Kalaburagi, 15 October 2026
- Ballari, 22 October 2026
Every one of them is in northern Karnataka. The notice lists no sitting for Bengaluru, Mysuru or Mangaluru.
Who keeps the record of when your power failed: the company that let it fail, or you? The interruption line on the bill would hand a Karnataka household a number it has never been given without asking for it.
Karnataka is rewriting what your electricity bill must tell you, and the last way to object is a hearing in one of six northern towns.
What we could not confirm
- Whether the Commission will notify more hearings for the Bengaluru, Mysuru and Mangaluru areas.
- Whether the charges in the draft's schedule differ from what the power companies collect today.
- How many written objections arrived before 13 September, and from whom.
The document
Draft Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (Electricity Supply Regulations), 2026. Published in the Official Gazette of Karnataka on 14 August 2026 by the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission, Bengaluru.
- Draft regulations, 122 pages: https://kerc.karnataka.gov.in/uploads/12121787573621.pdf
- Notice inviting comments: https://kerc.karnataka.gov.in/uploads/media_to_upload1786969012.pdf
- Highlights of the proposed changes: https://kerc.karnataka.gov.in/uploads/34211787573519.pdf
- Public hearing notice: https://kerc.karnataka.gov.in/uploads/69541790574131.pdf
- Mercom India, "Karnataka Regulator Proposes New Electricity Supply Rules", 17 August 2026: https://www.mercomindia.com/karnataka-regulator-proposes-new-electricity-supply-rules
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