Preparations for Modi regime 3.0: To fire up PNG adoption, govt may hand out free connections
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 plan is likely to be part of the ministry's proposal for the first 100-day agenda of the government which will be sworn in after the general election, they said. The Modi government has asked all ministries to propose new ideas and plans that could be launched or implemented in the first 100 days of the next regime.
Officials are busy preparing the plans, which are likely to be discussed with the cabinet secretary in early May in the middle of the election, according to people in the know.
Building a natural gas-based economy has been at the heart of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's energy agenda for a decade. Popularising PNG has been a key objective the government has set for city gas distributors, but its adoption has been far slower than that of LPG. There are just about 12 million PNG customers compared to 320 million LPG consumers, including 103 million Ujjwala beneficiaries. The government wants city dwellers to rapidly shift from LPG to PNG.
State financial support can help promote PNG the way it boosted LPG, said petroleum and natural gas ministry officials.
The ministry is likely to propose waiver of connection charge, including the installation and security fee, and introduction of
