The Centre has reduced the waiting period for booking liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) refills from 45 days to 25 days for consumers across India, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Suresh Gopi said on Monday, September 7, 2026. The revised interval will apply uniformly to LPG consumers in urban and rural areas.
Gopi shared a copy of a letter issued by the Petroleum Ministry to oil marketing companies (OMCs) in a Facebook post. The letter communicated the revised booking timeline and followed an earlier arrangement that had differentiated between urban and rural consumers.
According to the ministerial communication cited in the report, the Centre had introduced refill booking timelines during the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East in February 2026. A PIB press release dated March 12, 2026, had prescribed a 25-day booking interval in urban areas and a 45-day interval in rural areas as a temporary demand-management measure.
The latest change removes that distinction by setting the booking interval at 25 days for both categories of consumers. The decision concerns the point at which a consumer can book a subsequent LPG refill; the supplied announcement does not specify any change to LPG prices, subsidy rules, delivery charges or the quantity of gas supplied in each cylinder.
The change is relevant to households that depend on LPG cylinders for cooking and must plan refill bookings around household consumption. By applying one interval across urban and rural areas, the revised timeline establishes a common booking rule for consumers regardless of location.
The Petroleum Ministry’s letter was addressed to the oil marketing companies, which manage LPG distribution and refill bookings. The supplied announcement does not provide details on whether the revised interval will be implemented through a specific digital platform update, distributor instruction or additional consumer communication.
The earlier 25-day and 45-day timelines were described in the ministry’s letter as temporary demand-management measures introduced in the context of the Middle East conflict. The latest direction changes the rural booking interval from 45 days to 25 days while retaining the 25-day interval for urban consumers.
The minister’s statement and the copy of the ministry letter are the official basis cited for the announcement. Further details on implementation by individual oil marketing companies, including the date on which the revised rule will take effect in booking systems, were not included in the supplied material.
