City gas firms race ahead on CNG, lag on home connections

New Delhi: India’s city gas firms are racing ahead on lucrative CNG stations but slow on low-margin home connections, driven by both operational difficulty and the very different competitive landscape the two segments face.

City gas distributors have overshot their target for CNG stations by 44% but fallen short of household piped-gas connections by 57%. As of October-end, companies had connected a cumulative 15.7 million households against a target of 36.3 million, according to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) data.