The Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) will begin distributing domestic piped natural gas (PNG) connections in the Siliguri subdivision by March 2026.
In the first phase, gas connections will be provided to around 500 households.
“Our target is to cover nearly 3,000 households in the first phase of the project,” Anuj Kumar, a senior project engineer of the HP City Gas Distribution Project, said at the ‘PNG (piped natural gas) Drive 2.0’ awareness programme on Friday.
Jayanta Narayan Das, member (technical) of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, inaugurated the event in the presence of senior HPCL officials. The drive will eventually be introduced across the state.
Kumar added that the rollout would start from Bagdogra and would later be extended to Matigara, Shivmandir and Atharokhai in the northwest of the city.
He also said that HPCL has already developed the infrastructure to provide around 2,500 domestic gas connections in the outskirts of Jalpaiguri town. These include Patkata Colony — where the service was launched on Friday — and Paharpur and Arabinda panchayats, where it will be introduced soon.
In north Bengal, HPCL will also provide compressed natural gas (CNG) for vehicles across Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and North Dinajpur districts.
According to officials, HPCL is investing approximately ₹1,700 crore in these three districts to develop natural gas infrastructure, which is expected to help reduce carbon emissions and maintain ecological balance.
Officials added that pipeline-laying is currently underway in civic areas of Siliguri.
“However, the pace of implementation has slowed due to the presence of existing utility services such as drinking water pipelines, electrical lines and optical fibre cables. The initial target is to lay pipelines across nearly 50km,” said a source.
“About 60 per cent of the pipeline-laying work in civic areas has been completed. We aim to start providing domestic gas connections within the next couple of months,” the source added.