PNG: Piped Natural Gas

Think of the difference between carrying water home in cans versus having a tap connected directly to your kitchen. PNG is the tap version of cooking gas, natural gas delivered continuously through underground pipelines straight into homes, offices and small industries, with no cylinder to book, collect or run out of.

A household on a PNG connection is billed based on actual metered consumption, much like an electricity bill, rather than paying for a fixed cylinder regardless of how much gas is actually used. PNG networks are built and operated by City Gas Distribution companies under licences granted by the petroleum regulator, and the rollout has expanded rapidly across Indian cities over the past decade as more geographical areas were auctioned.

If your kitchen stove is connected to a wall pipe rather than a cylinder, you are a PNG customer, and somewhere in that city a CGD company is quietly billing you by the cubic metre.