Mumbai finally saw relief on Tuesday afternoon after two days of severe disruption in Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) supply. Officials confirmed that gas supply across all fuel stations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) was fully restored at 3:45 pm, ending a crisis that had impacted lakhs of commuters and public transport services.
What Caused Pipeline Damage?
The disruption began on Sunday afternoon when a gas pipeline belonging to GAIL India Ltd. suffered damage at the RCF terminal in Chembur. This “third-party damage” interrupted supply to several Mahanagar Gas Ltd. (MGL) outlets, including a key station in Wadala, leading to an immediate shortage across the city.
According to MGL, only 225 out of its 389 stations were operational on Monday, leaving more than 40% of pumps shut. The sudden supply cut led to long queues at pumps and forced several refuelling stations to remain closed through Monday and Tuesday morning.
BEST Bus Services Hit Hard
Public transport suffered the most because of the outage. The Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking, which operates a large fleet of CNG buses, struggled to maintain services.
BEST officials said that while buses managed to run on Monday with fuel filled the previous night, there was no fuel left for their CNG fleet by Monday night. As a result, 44% of BEST’s buses were at risk of going off the roads on Tuesday, threatening to paralyse Mumbai’s daily transport network.
Commuters Face Struggle
With reduced supply, autos, taxis, and school buses across Mumbai, Thane, and Navi Mumbai were severely affected. Many auto and taxi drivers reported waiting in queues stretching up to 1–2 kilometres, with no guarantee of when they would get fuel.
Over 300,000 auto drivers, 20,000 taxi drivers, and owners of more than 500,000 private CNG cars across the region faced difficulties as they were unable to operate.
School transport was also hit. The School Bus Owners’ Association said that around 2,000 CNG-run school buses in the MMR remained off the roads, creating problems for students and parents.
Aggregator cabs such as Ola and Uber continued operating by switching to petrol mode, but commuters complained of surge pricing, with fares going up to twice the normal rates.
The restoration brought much-needed relief to commuters, drivers, and transport operators after two days of widespread disruption.
