LPG: Liquefied Petroleum Gas

Picture a mix of two gases, propane and butane, compressed just enough to turn liquid and fit inside a metal cylinder small enough to carry home on a scooter. That cylinder is LPG, the fuel behind the vast majority of Indian household cooking that is not on a piped PNG connection.

LPG is distributed through oil marketing companies under familiar brand names, sold in standard cylinder sizes, and has historically carried a government subsidy to keep it affordable, most visibly through the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, which specifically targeted free LPG connections for low income households that previously relied on firewood or coal for cooking.

LPG and PNG serve the identical purpose, cooking fuel, through two entirely different delivery models, one you carry home in a cylinder, the other flows continuously through a pipe. Which one a household uses usually comes down simply to whether a PNG pipeline has reached that neighbourhood yet.