SRINAGAR: Even as India expands its Piped Natural Gas (PNG) network at a record pace across the country, Jammu and Kashmir remains one of the few Union Territories yet to see a single domestic PNG connection laid in its territory. This was revealed in a written reply by Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Shri Suresh Gopi, in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
According to official data, while over 1.52 crore households across India have been connected to PNG networks between 2020 and May 2025, Jammu and Kashmir has registered zero PNG domestic connections to date. The state’s name features among those, like Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Sikkim, that remain entirely unserved by the expanding city gas infrastructure.
This is despite the ambitious push under the City Gas Distribution (CGD) programme, regulated by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), which has covered 307 Geographical Areas (GAs) across nearly 100% of India’s mainland.
Notably, the government’s written reply did not mention whether a GA has been formally authorised for PNG development in J&K, nor did it provide a roadmap for when such infrastructure will be rolled out in the region. This raises questions about whether the region has yet been included in the planned city gas coverage or remains pending under future bidding rounds.
This lack of PNG access stands in stark contrast to states like Delhi (1.73 million connections), Gujarat (3.6 million), Maharashtra (4.27 million), and Uttar Pradesh (1.96 million), which have received substantial investments and now have well-developed household gas grids.
