Natural gas considers as the fuel for the 21st century and is expected to play an important role in the developing countries' energy mix due to clean fuel, environmental, climate goals and sustainability issues. India too is striving for increasing the natural gas share from 6.2% in 2019 to 15% by 2030. Government of India is also stressing to boost natural gas share in the country's energy mix, which is still below the desired level and presence of the barriers makes it difficult to establish natural gas as preferred fuel in this country. Therefore, it is imperative to analyze the criticality of the barriers to understand how they impact on the natural gas market of India. The study employs a two-phase methodology to identify and analyze the critical barriers restricting the natural gas demand in India by employing novel hybrid best-worst method (BWM). The results indicate that operational and supply related barriers are the two most critical out of the identified categories. The findings of the developed framework could be used by the policymakers, strategists and the managers, which will help them to reduce and eliminate the barriers and promote natural gas as the preferred fuel.