DISCO (Distribution company)
Definition. A DISCO is one of the regional electricity distribution companies that own the low-voltage network in their territory, meter consumers, issue bills and restore supply — the organisation a Pakistani consumer actually deals with.
Also called: Distribution company · Electric supply company · XESCO
Where you see it: The company name and logo at the top of every bill.
The eleven, and the one that is not
LESCO, GEPCO, FESCO, IESCO, MEPCO, PESCO, HAZECO, HESCO, SEPCO, QESCO and TESCO cover the country between them and all bill through the PITC platform.
K-Electric is different: a vertically integrated private utility serving Karachi with its own generation, its own billing system and its own consumer numbering. A Karachi bill is not retrievable through the PITC portal.
What your DISCO can and cannot decide
It can correct a reading, reverse a wrongly applied surcharge, change a tariff category, sanction an instalment plan, restore supply and repair the network.
It cannot change FPA, alter slab rates, waive sales tax or set the television fee. Those are notified centrally, and a complaint about them at a sub-divisional office has nowhere to go.
The internal hierarchy
Sub-division under a sub-divisional officer, division under an executive engineer, circle under a superintending engineer, then the company head office. Complaints escalate along that chain.
Knowing the next rung is worth more than knowing a helpline number. An unresolved sub-divisional matter goes to the executive engineer, not sideways.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know which DISCO serves my address?
By district. Each company's territory is defined geographically, and the name is printed on any bill for the premises. Boundary districts occasionally surprise people, so the bill is more reliable than assumption.
Are DISCOs government-owned?
They are public sector companies, historically under the Ministry of Energy through PEPCO, with privatisation of several repeatedly proposed. K-Electric is the privatised exception.
Related terms
- NEPRA — What NEPRA decides, how its public hearings work, and when a consumer complaint genuinely belongs with the regulator rather than with the DISCO.
- PITC — The organisation behind the duplicate bill portal, what it does and does not control, and why an outage there affects every DISCO at once.
- WAPDA — Why Pakistanis say 'WAPDA bill' when WAPDA has not billed anyone for decades, and what the authority actually does today.
- Sub-divisional office — What a sub-divisional officer can actually decide, how to make a written complaint that gets a reference number, and when to escalate to the executive engineer.
Go further
Back to the full 44-term glossary, or open your own bill with the reference number lookup.