Sri Lanka, March 26 -- India is urging households to increase their reliance on piped natural gas (PNG) as the country reels from the energy fallout of the war - a move that could transform cooking habits for tens of millions of people.

Households across urban and rural India rely heavily on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders as their primary cooking fuel, which are delivered everywhere from high-rise apartment blocks to remote village clusters.

However, India's PNG infrastructure - gas delivered via pipeline - has been steadily expanding in recent years, with more than 15 million registered household connections across the country.

The nation of 1.4 billion imports much of its LPG from the Middle East. By contrast, its PNG supply...