NEW DELHI, October 16 — The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB), operating under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG), on Friday finalized the concession awards for 50 newly demarcated Geographical Areas (GAs) under the 12th City Gas Distribution (CGD) bidding round, accelerating the transition towards a gas-based economy.
The completion of this bidding tranche expands cumulative CGD network coverage across more than 300 authorized GAs, encompassing over 88 percent of India's population and 70 percent of its landmass. Successful infrastructure concessionaires have formally committed to establishing 25 million new domestic Piped Natural Gas (PNG) connections and rolling out 3,500 Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) dispensing stations over the next eight years.
Petroleum ministry officials highlighted that aggressive expansion of the national gas footprint directly supports India's long-term environmental target to elevate the share of natural gas in the primary energy basket from approximately 6 percent to 15 percent by 2030, curbing reliance on imported high-emission crude distillates.
The statutory mandate of the PNGRB under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act 2006, the development of the National Gas Grid (including the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga project), the SATAT (Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation) CBG framework, and low-carbon energy transition pathways represent vital topics in UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Infrastructure & Energy Economics).