Wrong MEPCO Bill? Correction, Complaint & Appeal Steps

If your MEPCO bill is wrong, you have a defined path with deadlines attached. Complain to MEPCO first and it has 15 days to respond. Only after that can NEPRA take the case, and it must be filed within one year of the problem arising. Knowing those two limits is what separates a complaint that gets fixed from one that drifts.

First, rule out the charges that aren’t errors

A high bill is not always a wrong bill. Before you complain, check whether the extra amount is a per-unit adjustment NEPRA applied nationally. Those appear as separate lines and are not billing mistakes, so a complaint about them goes nowhere. Our bill adjustments page lists the current rates and who’s exempt.

What is worth disputing: a reading that doesn’t match your meter, an estimated bill, a payment missing from your arrears, a wrong tariff category, or a detection bill you don’t accept.

Build your case before you file

A complaint with evidence moves; one without it gets an estimate revised and little else. Gather:

• A photo of your meter you take yourself, with the date visible, showing the current digits.
• Your bill, with the present reading and reading date.
• Payment receipts for any month MEPCO says is unpaid.
• Your last few bills, to show what your normal usage looks like.

Keep this together. You will hand the same file to MEPCO, and possibly to NEPRA after it.

Stage one: MEPCO, and the 15-day clock

Lodge the complaint through any of these. All are valid, and the online route gives you a written trail:

• The CCMS portal at ccms.pitc.com.pk.
• 118, the electricity complaint line printed on your bill.
• Your sub-division office, in person with your file.

Get a complaint number every time and write it down. There’s a rule worth knowing here: if you hand a complaint to any MEPCO official at a sub-division, that official is required to pass it to the complaint centre for registration. A complaint made in person is not supposed to vanish because nobody entered it. If you’re given no number, ask for one and note the name of the person you spoke to.

MEPCO has 15 days to respond. That clock is what unlocks the next stage, so note the date you filed.

Ask for the meter to be tested

This is the step almost nobody knows about, and it decides most serious disputes.

If you believe the meter itself is faulty, running fast, stuck, or with a washed-out display, you can ask MEPCO to remove it and send it to the Metering and Testing (M&T) laboratory for checking. The lab’s finding becomes the evidence both sides work from.

Be aware of what can follow. If the lab finds a meter was defective and units went unrecorded, MEPCO can charge those pending units as a detection bill. That’s a real outcome from documented cases, not a scare. So request testing when you genuinely believe the meter is wrong, and keep your own readings in the meantime, because your record of the digits is what protects you if the lab result is disputed.

Stage two: NEPRA, after MEPCO’s 15 days

If MEPCO doesn’t resolve it in 15 days, take it to NEPRA’s Consumer Affairs Department. You can register online and track the case with a tracking number.

Two rules govern this stage:

• You must have approached MEPCO first. NEPRA’s 2015 complaint rules require the distribution company to have had its 15 days. Filing before that gets the case sent back.
• File within one year of when the problem arose. After that, the cause of action lapses.

NEPRA checks your complaint for completeness within about seven working days, registers it, then issues a notice to MEPCO, which must reply. It can call for records, order a site inspection, and its Complaints Resolution Committee issues decisions that MEPCO has to act on. Published cases include reversed and revised detection bills, so this stage does produce real outcomes.

Submit your reference number, the full history with dates, your complaint number from MEPCO, and your meter photos.

Stage three: the Federal Ombudsman

If NEPRA’s route doesn’t give you relief, the Wafaqi Mohtasib (Federal Ombudsman) takes complaints against government bodies free of charge, and accepts them online. This is the last institutional step, and it exists precisely for people who have exhausted the earlier ones with documentation to show for it.

Detection bills: a separate fight

A detection bill is charged on top of your normal bill for units MEPCO says went unbilled. There are two very different causes, and the difference matters.

• A defective meter. Units the meter failed to record are billed after testing. This is a technical assessment you can challenge on the numbers.
• Alleged theft. Where illegal abstraction is claimed, the amounts are far larger, up to several times the assessed loss, and equipment can be seized as evidence.

Either way, the appeal route is not the ordinary complaint desk. Under NEPRA’s Consumer Service Manual, if you dispute the units detected, the appellant authority is MEPCO’s review committee, headed by the next higher officer, and you are entitled to a personal hearing before it. Ask for that hearing in writing and attend with your file.

Should you pay a bill you’re disputing?

This is the hardest practical question, and honesty serves you better than reassurance.

An unpaid bill accrues a late payment surcharge and carries forward as arrears, and non-payment can lead to disconnection, including in documented detection-bill cases. Filing a complaint does not by itself stop that.

If the disputed amount is small relative to the risk, many people pay under protest and pursue a refund or adjustment, which keeps the supply on while the case runs. If the amount is large, ask MEPCO in writing for the disputed portion to be held in abeyance or split into installments while the complaint is decided, and keep that request as part of your file. Whatever you choose, pay the undisputed part of the bill so the argument stays narrow.

Frequently asked questions