Government weighs PNG drive 3.0 to speed up adoption; launch likely in September

Mumbai: The government is planning PNG Drive 3.0 to speed up the process of homes and industries switching to piped natural gas (PNG), two officials aware of the development said.

The drive could be launched as early as September, they told ET.

The government launched its second PNG adoption drive after India's liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supply chain came under pressure amid global uncertainties linked to the war in Iran, which disrupted shipping routes and affected LPG availability in the country.


It set a target of up to 100,000 new PNG connections a day to further reduce its LPG import and subsidy burden. City gas distribution (CGD) companies responded by accelerating the rollout of PNG connections to households. The push saw the number of PNG connections added daily jump to around 10,000, up from 4,000-5,000 a month before the start of the war. However, the officials cited earlier said the ministry is dissatisfied with the progress.

"After seeing some traction that PNG received in the past two rounds of promoting the segment, the ministry of petroleum and natural gas (MoPNG) is considering launching another round to promote PNG adoption," said one of the officials.

The petroleum ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed query on the matter.

At present, over 20 million homes in India have PNG connections. The others mostly rely on LPG for their cooking needs.

The ministry is keen to push PNG adoption in cities where a CGD network is already available but still has high usage of LPG.

The government is also encouraging commercial consumers such as restaurants, hotels and industrial units to switch to PNG from LPG, the officials said.

"Adding 100,000 connections daily is impossible. Especially given the shortage of gas plumbers and technicians," said one of the officials quoted above. "Companies are still trying their best to meet the target as much as possible." Mahanagar Gas Ltd (MGL), one of the largest CGD companies in India, said it added 95,000 household connections in the last quarter, its highest-ever quarterly addition.

"We can go from 1,000 connections a day to more than that as well-2,000, 3,000 also," MGL told analysts recently.