Centre Pushes States To Speed Up LPG-To-PNG Conversion In Districts

The Centre has asked states and Union Territories to extend district-level administrative support to accelerate the conversion of domestic cooking gas connections from LPG to piped natural gas (PNG), arguing that PNG is a safer cooking fuel and eases the logistics burden on oil companies.

In a letter to chief secretaries of all states, Petroleum Secretary Neeraj Mittal sought district-level intervention in areas where pipeline gas is already available.

The objective is to implement a regulatory framework that prevents households from retaining both LPG and PNG connections simultaneously.

“PNG provides a safer, cleaner and more efficient cooking fuel and plays an important role in advancing the country’s energy transition goals. Its faster adoption helps reduce the logistics burden associated with LPG distribution, improves consumer convenience and ensures better utilisation of city gas distribution (CGD) infrastructure created through large public and private investments,” Mittal wrote.

The push follows the West Asia crisis, when supplies through the Strait of Hormuz — the route for roughly 50 per cent of India’s LPG imports — disrupted, straining the supply chain.

The government has notified the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Regulation of Supply and Distribution) Amendment Order, 2026, to offer additional relief to LPG consumers adopting PNG.

During the crisis, about 7.99 lakh PNG connections were gasified, and infrastructure was readied for another 2.87 lakh, taking total capacity to 10.86 lakh connections.

District-Level Action

Authorised CGD entities and public sector oil marketing companies will constitute PNG Coordination Committees (PCC) in every geographical area. It will, however, identify eligible housing societies and households, issue statutory notices to societies, RWAs and individual consumers, and hold awareness camps.

District administrations will likely help secure right of way or right of use, ease the transition between LPG distributors and CGD entities, assist in consumer verification and grievance redressal, and monitor adoption.

Food and civil supplies officials, the Ministry said, are best placed for this role. States must designate a district-level nodal officer for each PCC.

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