India's Piped Natural Gas Push Faces Roadblocks

India’s big piped natural gas (PNG) push seems to be running into a few roadblocks along the way. City gas distribution (CGD) companies are currently managing to add only 8,000-10,000 new connections a day, far short of petroleum and natural gas ministry’s ambitious target of 100,000 daily connections. Executives in the sector said the rollout is being slowed by an acute shortage of trained manpower, particularly certified gas plumbers, along with weak consumer uptake in several regions. “The urgency of the government is understandable, but the ecosystem is not ready,” a senior executive at a CGD company told ET. Industry players said that the required workforce simply does not exist at the scale needed for such an aggressive expansion drive. The problem has worsened in major centres including the National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai and Ahmedabad, where many plumbers have returned to their hometowns amid election-related disruptions. “There are no certified gas plumbers available. The target is not achievable in the current scenario,” another executive said. To bridge the gap, CGD companies have started recruiting water plumbers and training them through three-to-four-week crash courses. However, executives said these workers cannot fully meet the technical expertise and safety standards needed for PNG installations. The sector has so far delivered around 16 million PNG connections, well below the pro-rated target of 40 million. At the current pace, the broader target of over 125 million connections by 2030 is appearing increasingly difficult. Apart from labour shortages, CGD companies are also facing poor activation rates among consumers. Industry officials said more than 6 million households where PNG pipelines have already been laid are yet to start using the service. Rental housing is emerging as another hurdle, with property owners reluctant to complete the process because of upfront deposits and procedural formalities. “Owners don't want to take the pain for tenants,” an official told ET. Executives added that low customer concentration in several localities is further affecting the rollout. Companies said scattered demand makes it commercially unviable to send installation teams into certain areas. “If orders are scattered, sending the crew doesn't make business sense. That delays the rollout further,” an industry executive explained.