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The petroleum and natural gas ministry is drawing up plans to offer free piped natural gas (PNG) connections and consumption subsidies to poor households to help its wider adoption on the lines of the Ujjwala scheme, which popularised liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) among the poor, said people familiar with the matter.

The government on March 31 cut the price of natural gas produced from difficult areas like deep sea KG-D6 block of Reliance Industries, marginally to $9.87 per million British thermal unit in line with softening of benchmark international gas prices, an official notification said.

While this translates to over 100 percent coverage of clean cooking fuels, the uptake remains limited with 40 percent of households still depend on solid fuels like cow dung and firewood. PMUY customers get a subsidy for up to 12 cylinders, but, on average, they only use 3.8 cylinders annually. The average consumption of non-PMUY in the fiscal year (FY) 2022-23 was 6.6 cylinders.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), in collaboration with City Gas Distribution entities, is launching a campaign from January 26th to March 31st, 2024, with the goal of encouraging the widespread adoption of PNG (Natural Gas) in households and expanding the consumer base across various segments of the population. Natural gas, being a clean and convenient fossil fuel, is the focus of this initiative.

AG&P Pratham aims to offer 10,000 PNG connections in Tamil Nadu by March 2024, participating in the PNGRB’s National PNG Drive with attractive schemes, a focus on women empowerment, and plans for a future transition to CNG

MGL has also agreed to provide a corporate guarantee to lenders of UEPL to assure the due performance and compliance of terms of borrowings by the acquired company.

Responding to supplementaries during the Question Hour, he said the government is encouraging consumption of compressed natural gas as it is relatively a cleaner fuel.

The government on Saturday announced compulsory blending of compressed biogas, which is extracted from municipal and agriculture waste, in natural gas to cut reliance on imports. Initially, 1 per cent of biogas will be blended in gas used in automobiles and household kitchens for cooking from April 2025, a government statement said. The share will be increased to around 5 per cent by 2028.

Eight entities submitted bids for 6 GAs. Six bids came in for Meghalaya, four for Sikkim, four for Nagaland, three for Manipur, two for Arunachal Pradesh, and one for J&K. No bid was received for Ladakh.