Households using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) will have to mandatorily shift to piped natural gas (PNG) in areas where PNG infrastructure and supplies are available, according to a government order aimed at accelerating natural gas network expansion and reducing dependence on LPG.
With the war in West Asia severely hitting India’s LPG imports, the government has been appealing to consumers to switch to PNG if it is available in their vicinity to take some pressure off of LPG supplies. Some city gas distribution (CGD) companies have also announced incentives like some volumes of free gas and waiver of connection charges to encourage consumers to sign up for PNG connections. The Centre has also urged states to help expedite PNG network expansion, and has even offered additional commercial LPG allocation if they take certain specific measures in this regard.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) has notified the Natural Gas and Petroleum Products Distribution (Through Laying, Building, Operation and Expansion of Pipelines and Other Facilities) Order, 2026 under the Essential Commodities Act. The order aims to facilitate the expansion of PNG networks, improve last-mile connectivity, and promote a shift towards natural gas for cooking, transport, and industrial purposes. The order, the government expects, will help free up LPG supplies from areas that have PNG connectivity, allowing those volumes to reach consumers in areas that currently don’t have PNG infrastructure.
As per the order, LPG supply shall cease if a household does not apply for a PNG connection—despite it being available—within three months of receiving formal communication to become a PNG consumer. Also, if the resident welfare association or the property owner fails to grant permission for city gas pipelines to be laid for the purpose of providing PNG connections, LPG supplies will stop three months after a notice is issued in this regard. In both these scenarios, residents will be notified of this three-month countdown by their LPG distributors “either by text message or telephonically or by recorded voice message”.
LPG supplies will continue only in cases where it is technically infeasible for the authorised CGD operator to provide PNG supply; no objection certificates will be provided to consumers in such cases. According to Petroleum Ministry Joint Secretary Sujata Sharma, there are around 60 lakh households in India that have PNG infrastructure available in their vicinity, but continue to use LPG. She informed that so far in March, around 2.5 lakh new PNG connections—domestic and well as commercial—have been provided and 2.2 lakh LPG uses have shifted to PNG.
Sharma said that this move is intended to reduce India’s high import dependency for LPG, due to which the ongoing West Asia crisis has had such an impact on LPG supplies. India depends on imports to meet 60% of its LPG requirement, and 90% of the imports come from West Asia via the critical chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, where vessel movements have all but come to a halt. By contrast, India’s reliance on imports for natural gas is around 50%, and 55-60% of LNG imports come through the Strait of Hormuz.
Also, in the most vulnerable segment of household consumers, India has a huge LPG consumer base with 33.3 crore domestic connections. Households with PNG connections are far fewer at about 1.6 crore. In the current scenario, priority sectors continue to receive protected natural gas supplies, including 100% supply to the household PNG and CNG for transport segments, while supplies to industrial and commercial consumers are being regulated at around 80%.
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The LPG supply constraint has forced the government to heavily cut supplies to commercial and industrial consumers in an effort to ensure uninterrupted supplies to crores of households that use the fuel for cooking. Additionally, the government ordered refiners to maximise LPG production, and directed them to divert propane, butane, and other streams from petrochemical manufacturing to LPG production. These measures have led to an increase of 40% in domestic LPG production vis-à-vis pre-West Asia conflict levels, which means that India’s own LPG production is now meeting roughly 55% of the country’s demand versus 40% earlier.
LPG is more portable as it is supplied in cylinders, while PNG requires pipeline connectivity at the consumer’s doorstep. However, once the requisite pipeline infrastructure is established, PNG scores higher than LPG in terms of convenience for users. This is because the pipeline provides uninterrupted supply and there is no need to store or keep track of the gas stock as in the case of LPG, where cylinders need to be booked and exchanged at regular intervals. PNG supplies are constant and metered, like power supply, and there is no need to make bookings.
PNG is also considered safer than LPG. This is because natural gas is lighter than air, which allows it to disperse quickly in case of a leak. LPG is heavier than air, and therefore tends to sink and accumulate in the air in case of leakage, which makes it a lot more prone to fires and explosions in such instances. Moreover, there are minimal human handling requirements of PNG from the city gas distributor’s facility to the consumer as the entire transmission is through pipelines. As for LPG, each time a cylinder runs out of gas, it has to be manually disconnected and replaced by the refill cylinder.
