New Delhi, Aug. 19 -- India plans to triple the pace of bringing households onto piped natural gas (PNG), targeting a three-fold rise in new users to 4 million this fiscal, as the West Asia war puts its heavy reliance on imported cooking gas under strain. The push will focus on getting more households to actually use piped gas, rather than merely expanding the network, Anil Kumar Jain, chairman of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, said.

"CGD (city gas distribution) players have been asked not to just report PNG infrastructure connection numbers, but also the number of gasified connections," Jain told Mint in an interview.

While higher use of the largely locally-sourced piped gas will ease India's import reliance on West As...