Complete Guide to BESCOM Electricity Bill

Overview

BESCOM bills consumers monthly. It was formed on 1 June 2002, when the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (KPTCL)'s distribution business was split into five regional companies — BESCOM, MESCOM, HESCOM, GESCOM and CESC — while KPTCL retained transmission. BESCOM's own territory covers Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural districts, plus six neighbouring districts (Chikkaballapura, Kolar, Davanagere, Tumkur, Chitradurga and Ramanagara) — eight districts in total, wider than Bangalore city alone.

If your connection is elsewhere in Karnataka — Mangalore, Hubli, Gulbarga and similar — you're more likely served by MESCOM, HESCOM or GESCOM instead, none of which have their own calculator on this site yet. Check the name on your bill before relying on the rates below.

Takeaway: “BESCOM” means Bangalore plus seven surrounding districts specifically — not all of Karnataka.

Consumer Categories

Our verified data currently covers four BESCOM consumer categories:

Takeaway: agriculture here isn't a discounted rate — for eligible pump sets, it's genuinely free.

Domestic (LT-2a) Tariff Slabs

BESCOM bills urban domestic consumption through three telescopic slabs, effective 1 April 2025 — before Gruha Jyothi or the KERC surcharge are applied:

See how telescopic slabs work for the general mechanic. Plug your own units into the BESCOM bill calculator for an instant, itemised estimate including Gruha Jyothi.

Takeaway: these are the base slab rates only — most domestic bills also have some units removed entirely by Gruha Jyothi before this table even applies.

Gruha Jyothi: Free, But Conditional

Gruha Jyothi gives eligible households free units each month — but the allowance is your own household's previous-year average monthly consumption plus a buffer, capped at 200 units, not automatically 200 units for everyone. Two neighbours with different past usage can have different free allowances.

The sharpest edge of the scheme: if you exceed your sanctioned baseline in a given month, BESCOM typically withdraws the subsidy for the entire month's bill — not just the units above your baseline. A single unusually high-usage month can cost dramatically more than the extra units alone would suggest. Our calculator models the simplified “first 200 units free” case for comparison, since your real baseline is specific to your own household's history and isn't data we can source generically.

Takeaway: Gruha Jyothi rewards staying consistently within your own past usage pattern — it doesn't reward a lower absolute number of units if that number is still above your personal baseline.

Commercial, Industrial and Agriculture Tariffs

Commercial note: one secondary source we checked cited ₹5.95/unit plus a 9% duty for this category instead of ₹8.00/unit — that figure looked like a probable mix-up with the residential LT-2a rate on the same source page, so we didn't use it. The ₹8.00/unit figure above converges across the sources we did trust, but is still pending a primary KERC order cross-check.

Agriculture note: the free rate above applies only to IP-set (irrigation pump set) connections up to 10HP. Above 10HP, or for unmetered/other agricultural sub-categories, rates are cited inconsistently across sources (roughly ₹3.50–8.30/unit) — not modelled here pending a reliable figure.

Takeaway: don't assume every agricultural connection is free — the free rate is specifically the up-to-10HP IP-set category.

Fixed Charges by Category

Every metered BESCOM category here bills its fixed charge per kW of sanctioned load, not as a flat monthly fee:

Takeaway: a higher sanctioned load raises your fixed charge every month regardless of actual usage — right-sizing it matters here.

The KERC Surcharge (BESCOM's Fuel Adjustment)

BESCOM applies a ₹0.36 per unit KERC surcharge, introduced from April 2025, on top of the slab rates above — applied across every consumer category. For the general mechanism behind a charge like this, see fixed charges vs FCA explained.

Unlike some DISCOMs where this kind of adjustment isn't modelled at all in our data, BESCOM's ₹0.36/unit figure is verified and included in the calculator and worked examples below.

Takeaway: this surcharge won't show up as its own “slab” line on your bill, but it applies to every unit you use, including units covered by Gruha Jyothi.

Electricity Duty — An Open Gap in Our Data

Unlike the other charges on this page, we don't have a verified electricity duty rate for BESCOM domestic connections. Our calculator currently applies 0%, but that reflects an unconfirmed placeholder in our sourcing, not a confirmed zero-duty policy in Karnataka — the source note behind this figure explicitly says the electricity tax isn't modelled yet.

For comparison, Maharashtra's MSEDCL charges a verified 16% and Uttar Pradesh's UPPCL charges a verified 5% — see our MSEDCL and UPPCL complete guides. West Bengal's WBSEDCL has the exact same unverified-duty gap as BESCOM — see our WBSEDCL complete guide. Until we can confirm Karnataka's actual rate against a primary KERC order, check your own bill's duty line directly rather than trusting the calculator's 0% as fact.

Takeaway: this is the one line on a BESCOM bill our calculator likely understates — everything else here is verified.

How to Check and Pay Your BESCOM Bill

1. 1Visit bescom.co.in or open the BESCOM Mithra app.
2. 2Enter your Account ID (RR Number) to view your current bill.
3. 3Verify the amount shown and pay via UPI, card or net banking.
4. 4Save the digital receipt for your records.

For outages or billing issues, BESCOM's helpline is 1912, available 24×7 — this guide and our calculator are estimation tools, not a substitute for your actual bill or the official portal for account-specific issues, including your real Gruha Jyothi baseline.

Takeaway: only BESCOM's own portal knows your specific Gruha Jyothi baseline — no calculator can look that up for you.

Worked Example: Within the Cap vs. Exceeding It

Two consumption levels on the same 2kW connection show how sharp Gruha Jyothi's cliff really is. Crucially, this isn't a partial-allowance scheme — cross the 200-unit cap and none of that month's units are free, not just the units above 200:

Scenario A — 150 units, within the 200-unit cap

Scenario B — 250 units, cap exceeded

Just 100 more units pushes the bill up by ₹1,781 — not because of the extra units themselves, but because crossing 200 wipes out the entire subsidy for the month. Neither scenario includes electricity duty (unverified — see above) or account-specific items like arrears. Run your own units and sanctioned load on the BESCOM bill calculator.

Takeaway: Gruha Jyothi isn't a rounding error — one month over the 200-unit cap costs roughly 7.5× more than a month comfortably under it, in this example.

Related tools and guides

Frequently asked questions