One Nation One Gas Grid

What is a Gas Grid?

A Gas Grid is a system of interconnected pipelines that transport natural gas from production facilities to end-users, including residential, commercial, and industrial consumers, ensuring a reliable supply for various applications.

About One Nation One Gas Grid

• The Government has envisaged to development of the National Gas Grid. At present about 16,788 Km of natural gas pipeline is operational and about 14,239 Km gas pipelines are being developed to increase the availability of natural gas across the country.
• The Indian Power system for planning and operational purposes is divided into five regional grids.
• One Nation, One Gas Grid refers to the integration of these regional grids thus establishing a National Grid for providing energy produced by natural gas to various stakeholders like the central government, the state governments, the public, and the private sectors.

Objective and Need of One Nation & One Gas Grid

• Meeting the targets: The initiative of the Indian government will help meet its target of reaching 15% natural gas in its energy basket mix by 2030 which is currently at 6.2-6.5% whereas the global average is 23-24%.
• Connecting the nation: With one nation and one gas grid, the energy produced from natural gas will be supplied to the whole country via a single source.
• Improving regional imbalance: It will help in improving the regional imbalance of gas availability as currently natural gas is only in limited pockets of the country.
• India as a gas-based economy: One nation, one gas grid which will help emerge India as a gas-based economy. It will not only lead to robust development in the economy but also encourage a clean environment.
• Cleaner environment: In times when conventional sources are depleting and mining is being extended to a greater depth and area, natural gas can prove to be a boon by preventing deforestation and desertification.
• Reduce import dependency: The import dependency of natural gas in India has reached to 53%. To reduce this high percentage, the government is taking measures to diversify the energy mix of India.

India’s Targets

• To increase the share of natural gas, the government has announced the expansion of the natural gas grid from the previous 17,500 kilometers to 34,500 kilometers. To which, 450 kms have already been added making it approx 18000.
• The next 16000 km is expected to be achieved in the next 4-6 years.
• Primarily, as a grid, the north and west parts of India were already connected via an LNG terminal.
• In the last 4 years, efforts have also been made to connect eastern India with the North via the Jagdishpur-Haldia-Bokaro-Dhamra Pipeline which is a PM Urja Ganga Project which is in its final stages and will also add around 3000 km to the grid.
• The southern part of India is also being looked upon and is expected to add about 1500 km to the grid.

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