Free Electricity Units by State: How the Subsidy Actually Works

Why nobody can tell you the rules

Every other figure on this site comes from a State Electricity Regulatory Commission tariff order — a public, numbered, dated document. Free-unit schemes do not. They are executive decisions of the state government: cabinet orders, budget announcements and subsidy notifications, applied on top of the tariff the regulator set.

That single fact explains why the information is so poor. The regulator publishes the rates and stops. In Tamil Nadu's tariff order the domestic schedule is printed in full and then footnoted "LT-IA, IB, IE, IIC, IIIA(2), IIIB and IV to be partly/fully subsidized by the Government" — the subsidy is acknowledged and never stated. Punjab's tariff order for FY 2025-26 carries the complete domestic slabs and does not mention a domestic free-unit subsidy anywhere in it.

So the terms live in government orders, scheme portals and DISCOM consumer FAQs rather than in one place. Everything below is traced to a specific order or an official scheme page.

The three shapes a scheme can take

The differences matter more than the headline number, because they change what happens at the edges.

1. A banded full-bill subsidy. Your whole bill is waived if total consumption stays under a threshold, with a smaller capped benefit in a second band. Delhi works this way.
2. An entitlement based on your own history. Your free allowance is computed from what you used in a reference year, not from a figure that is the same for everybody. Karnataka works this way, and it surprises people.
3. A free block off the top. The first N units are free and you pay normal slab rates on the rest. This is what most people assume every scheme does. It is the most forgiving shape, because going over costs you only the excess.

Shapes 1 and 2 have a cliff. Shape 3 does not. That is the single most important thing to know about your state's scheme.

Karnataka: your entitlement is probably not 200 units

Gruha Jyothi is quoted everywhere as "200 free units". The Government of Karnataka's own FAQ says something different:

"The benefit is calculated based on average consumption for Financial Year 2022-23 + 10% increase (total amounting to less than 200 units)"

Your entitlement is your own household's average from FY 2022-23, plus 10%. The 200 is a ceiling, not a grant. A household that averaged 90 units is entitled to about 99 — not 200.

And there is a cliff. Asked what happens if consumption exceeds the entitlement, the same FAQ answers:

"Yes for that particular month alone you will have to pay the entire bill amount."

Not the excess — the entire bill. A household entitled to 99 units that uses 105 pays for all 105, at full tariff, plus fixed charges and duty. Six units of carelessness can cost several hundred rupees. Stay under and the FAQ is equally clear: you get a "Zero bill".

Other conditions worth knowing: registration through Seva Sindhu is mandatory and Aadhaar must be linked to the account; only one meter per household qualifies; tenants are eligible on a rental agreement or Voter ID plus Aadhaar; commercial premises are excluded. Source: Government of Karnataka Gruha Jyothi FAQ, read 26 August 2026.

Delhi: unusually broad, and it covers more than the energy charge

Delhi's scheme is banded on total monthly consumption:

• Up to 200 units — the entire current bill amount
• 201 to 400 units — subsidy up to ₹800 per month
• Above 400 units — none

The detail most summaries miss is what "the entire current bill" includes. BSES states the benefit against the current bill value inclusive of PPAC, electricity tax and pension surcharge. Most schemes subsidise the energy charge only and leave you paying the fuel surcharge and duty on top; Delhi's does not. Given that Delhi's PPAC has run in double digits, that is a material difference.

It is applied automatically by the DISCOM rather than claimed, and an opt-out is offered. Because it is banded on total consumption, the same cliff logic applies at 200 units as in Karnataka. Source: BSES Rajdhani consumer FAQ, read 26 August 2026; underlying order GoNCTD No. F.11(111)/2012/Power/Vol-III/1417-1427.

Tamil Nadu: the figure is per two-month cycle, not per month

Tamil Nadu bills domestic supply bi-monthly, and its slabs are written per two-month cycle — the LT-IA schedule starts at 0–400 kWh, not 0–200. The free-unit entitlement is written the same way.

Under G.O.(Ms) No.50 dated 10 May 2026, read with TNERC Order No.5 of 2026, a domestic consumer billing up to 500 units in the two-month cycle gets 200 units free per cycle. Above that, the older allowance of 100 units per cycle continues. Note what that means at the boundary: it is a taper rather than a cliff — cross 500 units and you keep a smaller allowance instead of losing it entirely.

This is where most published comparisons fall apart. A figure that is per billing cycle gets reprinted as if it were per month, doubling the apparent benefit. If you are comparing Tamil Nadu against a monthly-billed state, halve the bi-monthly figure first: 200 units per cycle is 100 units a month.

What to check on your own bill

1. Find the subsidy line. It appears as a deduction, often near the bottom, labelled subsidy, concession or rebate. If it is absent and you believe you qualify, that is the thing to raise — not the tariff.
2. Check whether you had to register. Karnataka's requires registration and Aadhaar linking. Delhi's is automatic. A scheme you never enrolled in will never appear on a bill.
3. Find your entitlement, not the headline number. Where the scheme is history-based, the figure that matters is on your own account, not in a news report.
4. Work out where your cliff is and how close you run to it. Our bill calculator will show you what a month just over the line actually costs at your DISCOM's rates — which is usually the argument for a small behaviour change rather than a large one.
5. Re-check after a state budget. These schemes are annual spending decisions. They get extended, narrowed and re-scoped far more often than tariffs do.

Why this page does not list all 34 states

Because most states do not have a domestic free-unit scheme, and for those that do the terms have to be traced to a specific order before we will print a number. Our calculator currently models schemes for Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, each against a cited order.

A table of every state’s free units would be easy to assemble from other websites, and we would have no idea which entries were current, which were the launch terms of a scheme since revised, and which were repeated errors — the Karnataka example above being one that has spread widely. Where we cannot find the document, we say so rather than fill the gap. If you have the notification for your state, we will read it and add it.

Frequently asked questions