Indian Railways will introduce commercial piped natural gas (PNG) at 22 railway premises across Delhi, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar under an agreement signed between Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) and the Delhi division of Northern Railway on Saturday. The initiative is expected to replace around 2,500 litres of diesel and 500 kg of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) consumption every day at the identified facilities.
The memorandum of understanding covers railway-owned commercial and institutional premises located within IGL’s authorised geographical areas. The first phase includes major locations such as Delhi Sarai Rohilla, Old Delhi, Anand Vihar Terminal, Hazrat Nizamuddin and New Delhi, along with a departmental mechanised laundry where PNG will be used to operate boilers.
PNG connections will also be provided to officers’ rest houses, base kitchens, running rooms, subordinate rest houses and guard and travelling ticket examiner lobbies. Initial consumption across the sites is estimated at approximately 3,000 standard cubic metres per day.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Northern Railway’s Delhi divisional railway manager Pushpesh Raman Tripathi, IGL chairman Shubhankar Sen, managing director Kumar Shankar and director-commercial Mohit Bhatia, among other senior officials from both organisations.
IGL said the arrangement is aligned with the objectives of the National PNG Drive 3.0 and is intended to reduce the railway’s dependence on conventional fuels. The company said replacing LPG cylinders and diesel with pipeline-based gas would also reduce the need for repeated cylinder refilling, transport, storage and fuel handling at the covered premises.
The railway’s mechanised laundry is among the facilities expected to use PNG for boiler operations. The agreement does not cover passenger train locomotion; its immediate scope is limited to commercial and institutional railway premises, including kitchens, rest facilities and other operational support locations.
IGL chairman Shubhankar Sen said the partnership could help reduce the railway’s energy expenditure and strengthen energy security. He also said the company planned to extend the connectivity in future to railway hospitals and residential colonies.
The company expects demand to rise to between 8,000 and 10,000 standard cubic metres per day as its PNG network expands in other authorised areas, including Ajmer, Banda, Rewari and Muzaffarnagar. The agreement also identifies the possibility of extending the model to railway hospitals, colonies and workshops in the future.
The initial rollout will therefore be measured through the installation and operation of PNG connections at the 22 identified premises. Further expansion will depend on network availability and implementation across the additional railway facilities identified by the two organisations.
