Centre Slashes Rural LPG Refill Wait from 45 to 25 Days - Uniform Booking Interval Nationwide

The Centre has delivered major relief to rural LPG consumers by cutting the mandatory refill booking interval from 45 days to 25 days. Announcing the move on Monday, Union Minister Suresh Gopi directed IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL to eliminate the rural-urban divide and implement a uniform 25-day booking gap nationwide with immediate effect.

The stricter norms had been introduced earlier this year after supply chain shocks from the West Asia conflict and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz - with the government capping urban consumers at 25 days and imposing a 45-day wait on rural households to prevent panic buying. With imports and supply now stabilized, the restrictions have been rolled back.

The change brings immediate relief to rural joint families and Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana beneficiaries, who often exhausted their single cylinder within three to four weeks. It ends their reliance on expensive black-market cylinders or polluting biomass stoves, putting rural and urban consumers on equal footing.