State-owned gas transmission and marketing company GAIL India aims at investing more than INR450bn (US$6.3bn) over the next five years to expand the gas transmission and the city gas distribution grid. Operating more than 12,000 km of networks and marketing 2/3 of the natural gas sold in India, GAIL is currently building more than 5,500 km of gas pipelines, with a similar length under planning. In addition, the company plans to develop 400 CNG stations and 1 million piped natural gas (PNG) connections to households over the next 3-5 years.
GAIL is currently building a 2,660 km long gas pipeline project, the Urja Ganga pipeline project, which will connect the eastern states of Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha. The construction of the 16 mcm/d (5.8 bcm/year) gas pipeline is nearing completion and the project should be commissioned by the end of 2020. In northern India, the northeast gas grid has entered construction and is expected to connect 8 states in north-eastern India by 2023.
In October 2019, the government announced that India would invest US$60bn to develop gas supply and distribution infrastructures, including pipelines and LNG import terminals, to link up all the regions by 2024. The objective is to expand the share of natural gas in its energy mix to 15% by 2030 (from the current 6%), which will help the government to reach its goal to double the size of Indian GDP to US$5,000bn by 2024. As part of this 15% target, India is developing city gas distribution networks to supply 70% of the population.