Stacked yellow pipes go up and down the outer walls of residential towers in Emaar Imperial Gardens and Adani Oyster in Gurgaon’s Sector 102, and Puri Emerald Bay in Sector 104, large condominium complexes along the Dwarka Expressway.
Similar stacked pipes can be seen at Raheja Vedaanta and Experion The Heartsong in Sector 108 to the north of the Expressway.
You’d think residents of these condos can afford to rest somewhat easy amid the shortage of liquified petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders in the wake of the war in the Middle East – no crisis of piped natural gas (PNG) has been reported so far.
Not quite – the PNG pipelines in these societies are not connected to any distribution pipeline, nor are the connections metered. Residents say they paid deposits and advances of at least Rs 7,000 per flat more than a year ago, but they are yet to receive piped gas supply.
And they have little hope that the central government’s push to states on Tuesday (March 17) to ramp up piped gas connections will succeed in finally moving things forward.
“We have been waiting for nearly two years, and we have made multiple representations to both Haryana City Gas (HCG) and Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) during this period,” Kamal Malhotra, a resident of Adani Oyster, said.
“At least 40 per cent of our residents have paid Rs 7,000 each. But so far, only the stack pipelines have been installed, and nothing has happened thereafter.”
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According to Malhotra, the GMDA is yet to give Right of way (RoW) permissions, not even the digging to test the mother line connection has started as yet.
Haryana City Gas Distribution Ltd, a unit of the SKN Group, is authorised by the Haryana government to distribute PNG and CNG in most residential sectors of Gurgaon district. (In Delhi and Noida, the authorised distributor is Indraprastha Gas Limited, or IGL.)
On Wednesday (March 18), the Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) of Adani Oyster wrote to the CEO of GMDA, PC Meena, drawing attention to the delay.
“This prolonged inaction [in making the PNG connections operational] has caused severe hardship to residents, who are left with no option but to carry LPG cylinders to upper floors of high-rise buildings, posing significant safety risks and daily inconvenience,” RWA vice-president Alka Malhotra said in the letter.
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“PNG (Piped Natural Gas) is a basic and essential utility for modern urban living, particularly in high-rise residential societies… Residents of Dwarka Expressway Sectors Gurugram – comprising approximately 15,469 residential flats – have been deprived of this essential facility,” the RWA’s letter to GMDA said.
Sunil Sareen, a resident of Emaar Imperial Gardens and co-convener of the Dwarka Expressway Gurugram Development Association, said the situation is similar in the other housing societies in the area.
“Bureaucratic hurdles are impacting thousands of citizens who are deprived of PNG connectivity for the last two years in the DXP (Dwarka Expressway) sectors,” Sareen said.
Sareen said residents of his society had paid advances of around Rs 8,000 per flat for PNG connectivity in February 2025, and had been promised a three-month timeline of activation. “But it (the gas) has still not come.”
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He also explained the nature of the operational difficulties in play in some cases. “For the other 20-plus societies in the area, the issues are two-fold – the gas agency (HCG) needs a minimum committed sum of money or number of users to install gas connections, and not all residents are willing to pay the advance. As such, the agency does not have the bandwidth to install in so many societies at once, and it has to go one by one,” Sareen said.
Asked for a comment on the complaints of residents, the GMDA said that applications from HCG and other agencies are processed according to timelines as and when they come.
“The CEO approved two [applications of the Dwarka E-way area] on Tuesday (March 17),” GMDA superintending engineer and nodal officer for RoWs, Faisal Ibrahim, said. “There is no particular pendency from the Expressway area, we process applications across the city. One RoW application can be for pipelines that connect to dozens of societies,” Ibrahim said.
HCG CEO A K Jana said that he would be meeting with the GMDA CEO to expedite the pending RoW applications for installation of PNG pipelines. He hoped for a speedy resolution of the situation, Jana said.
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Areas covered by HCG in Gurgaon (shaded)
How to get a PNG connection in Gurgaon
- Visit the website haryanacitygas.com or hcgonline.co.in and check if your society is among the more than 250 housing societies covered by Haryana City Gas. You can proceed further if you are in the list.
- Select society, and then ‘Apply for new PNG connection’.
- Fill in the details: Name, mobile number, email, address, property type.
- Upload the necessary documents: ID, ownership proof, photo, and NoC from the society management.
- Pay registration charges of Rs 8,450 (post-paid meter) or Rs 9,750 (pre-paid). This includes a refundable security deposit and processing fees.
- Once this process is complete, an HCG engineering team will conduct a site visit to assess feasibility.
- If the inspection team deems that a connection is feasible, pipeline and meters will be installed by authorised technicians. Minor stove conversions are needed.
- Once the PNG connection is activated, bi-monthly online billing will start.
Areas covered by HCG in Gurgaon (shaded)