The government announces a new incentive scheme to encourage gas distribution companies to expand the domestic piped natural gas (PNG) network. The plan links support to newly activated connections and provides distribution companies access to lower-cost domestic gas for these additional links. The objective is to bring large numbers of currently unbilled or inactive accounts into operation and speed up the return on companies’ capital investments.
The initiative is intended to accelerate households’ shift from LPG to PNG by making network expansion faster and more financially viable for city gas distribution (CGD) companies. Times of India reports the scheme targets more than 50 lakh previously unbilled accounts to be turned into working connections, while NDTV describes the mechanism as reducing costs for CGD firms, activating billed connections, and improving the pace of household network growth. Both outlets frame the policy as an effort to increase piped cooking gas adoption through incentives tied to connection activation.
