Nazish Pervez Khan of Uniworld City is worried about her daughter. “Ayesha lives in Saudi Arabia, so I’m concerned about her safety in the midst of the war,” she says. “But my daughter is equally worried about me, as she knows that our gas is running out!”
The Khan household is a family of five, and their gas cylinder will exhaust soon. “I’ve been trying to get a new one for two weeks now. Initially, the order couldn’t be placed, and when it did go through, the system said the cylinder would arrive 25 days after the last delivery. Our cylinder usually runs 18 to 19 days! Moreover, we celebrate Id this weekend when family and friends come over, and we serve meals fit for kings. Biriyani alone uses up a lot of gas so I just don’t know what to do,” she grimaces.
The shortage of cooking gas has sent households into a tizzy. Some have stopped cooking items that use up a lot of gas, others have switched to electric modes of cooking. But all are stop-gap solutions.
A chef at Banchharam’s in FC Block fries singara on an electric hot plate.
“Our family prefers roti for dinner, but it takes up so much gas that we have cut down on rotis and are mostly having rice at night. We’re using the pressure cooker to make as many items as possible, but don’t want to use an induction cooker as it would consume a lot of electricity at a time when we are also using the AC. The price of LPG has shot up by Rs 60 too, so we’re under pressure from all sides,” Khan says.
The Senguptas of GD Block cook for six people and two dogs, and so have pulled their old induction cooker out of the loft. “I don’t want to get an unoon as it’s a messy affair, so all the boiling is being done on induction. We’ve omitted items like papad and begun bhaja altogether as they use up a lot of gas. We also had a smaller cylinder on standby that we’re using,” says Sharmila Sengupta.
Home deliveries
Some residents do not cook at all and rely on home deliveries for meals. But these delivery services are counting the hours, too, till their gas runs out. “Our commercial gas has in fact already run out,” says Avira Dasgupta of Anno Bhog in Karunamoyee. “We are unable to accept one-off customers and, on humanitarian grounds, are only cooking for regulars using our family’s personal cylinder and an induction cooker. Roti, paratha, luchi, chutneys and breakfasts are off the menu. We’re just making dal-bhat and fish,” she sighs.
Prasaad, the community kitchen run by the CG Block-based NGO Prayasam, is facing the pinch too. “We need four to five commercial cylinders per month. If there are big events to cater for, we get an extra cylinder. But now supply is scarce and the suppliers are quoting exorbitant prices,” said Prasanta Roy, director, hospitality, at Prayasam.
A man cycles with a cylinder strapped behind, in AG Block.
This means they are focusing on the regular clients who need daily deliveries — residents in the neighbouring blocks and corporate employees in Sector V. “We are not in a position to accept orders for office get-togethers or family gatherings. This is bad for our growth. Byabsa baranor dikey mon na diye ekhon tikey thakar cheshta,” he lamented.
Eastern Staples, anchored at Arts Acre, provides meals to more than 2,000 people across corporate houses, medical institutions, hostels and the like, and they are concerned. “The gas we have now will last a week more. We’ve cut down our vast menu to basics and changed cooking methods. Biriyani, for instance, we are making on tawa and pressure cooker,” says founder and director Susmita Chakravarty, a resident of Uniworld City.
Relish Caterers, that used to be known as Dui Burir Hesel before, is relieved that the peak wedding season ended before this shortage. “We have some events at the end of the month and cannot suggest trimming the menu as everyone wants to treat their guests like royalty,” says proprietor Indrani Brahma. “We had refilled our gas just before this crisis, so should be able to tide over for a while.
We’re in service since 1997 and have never seen a gas shortage like this.”
An empty LPG station at the City Centre petrol pump on Monday.
Sweet and sour
Hawkers, who serve thousands of office-goers across the townships, have had to look for alternatives. Shambhunath Payra, outside the CGO complex, has bought an unoon. “This method of cooking is banned,” he says, pointing at the coal burning at its base. “The authorities came a few years ago and made us quit the unoon and take up gas supplies, but what option do we have now? My stall needs a 19l gas cylinder a day.” He is only cooking staples now. Meat is off the menu and rohu is the only option, replacing the four or five types of fish he served before.
His neighbour Biswanath Pandit is busy pumping his kerosene stove every few minutes. “I’ve had to buy this new stove,” he says. “It’s a messy affair as the kerosene leaks, but it was either this or shutting down altogether,” he says, flipping a roti over it.
At the CA Market sweets shop Kalpataru, savoury items — kochuri, singara, chop — are all history. So are fried sweets like pantua and lyangcha that guzzle up a lot of gas. “Even the pandemic wasn’t this serious, as we could at least do business for three or four hours. This time, we may run out of gas any minute and shut down. Revenue would be nil but we’d still have to pay staff, rent, and other overheads,” says Prasenjit Sil from behind the counter.
Having the last laugh, perhaps, is Banchharam’s that has a store in Salt Lake’s FC Block and New Town’s Axis Mall and Misti Hub in Eco Park. “A few years ago, we set ourselves the target of making all our outlets eco-friendly by the end of 2026 so most of them use electric cooking systems instead of gas,” says Subhajit Ghosh, one of the directors. “We had large electric korais custom-built to suit our needs, so we are not dependent solely on gas. We adopted this approach to reduce our carbon footprint, but it has given us an unexpected edge in the current crisis.”
An LPG delivery man in Sarat Abasan.
Rush for induction cookers
To say that the sale of induction cookers has shot up would be an understatement. “We’ve sold more of them in the past two weeks than we do in a year!” says Mamon Das of Khosla Electronics, opposite City Centre. “Before this crisis, our store would barely sell 50 units a month, and now we’re selling that many in a day. The prices, too, have shot up from around Rs 1,500 to 3,500 but no one’s complaining. Customers are ready to pay in advance too.”
Sale of other electric cooking devices like microwaves, rice cookers, multi-cooker and air fryers are on the upswing too.
Halt in autorickshaw ride
Another industry hit hard by the shortage is transport. Many app cabs run on CNG, but the petrol pump next to the erstwhile AMRI hospital (now Manipal Hospitals Broadway) said they aren’t faring too badly. Autos that run on LPG, however, are running from pillar to post.
The City Centre petrol pump provides LPG and on Tuesday evening, the queue there had crossed Rabindra Okakura Bhavan, De Sovrani hotel, taken a left turn at the Ramakrishna Island and nearly reached the Kalyan Jewellers Island! With little gas in their tanks, the drivers were pushing their autos along.
“It’s a nightmare,” said Rana Das, who got LPG after waiting in the said queue for more than three hours that evening. “I’ve never seen queues this long. It wasted so much time during peak hours,” said the driver who plies on the City Centre-Ultadanga route.
The men behind the counter at the City Centre petrol pump said supply had both reduced and become less frequent. “The other day, we ran out of LPG at 6pm and had to disappoint so many drivers. Now they’ve taken our phone number and are calling up to ask if we have gas,” said a staffer.
A van full of gas cylinders
Auto driver Shubham Roy says two weeks ago, the LPG stand at this petrol pump used to be so empty that he would saunter in even with passengers on board. “Another reason for the serpentine queues now is that many drivers who had been using domestic LPG illegally aren’t getting the same now, and so are coming to petrol pumps. Drivers are coming from as far off as Baguiati and Hatiara. Previously, we would buy just as much gas as we had money for, but now we are forced to buy a full tank. Had I known of this crisis before, I would have spent a lakh more and got an electric auto instead,” he grumbled.
Word from gas agency
Also under tremendous stress are the outlets selling gas. Cooking Gas and Appliances, the store in BD Market, had to call the police to diffuse the ruckus created by customers demanding cylinders out of turn.
“The authorities have stopped us from selling commercial gas for now, but the sale of domestic gas continues. Initially, orders could not be placed as everyone was trying to book it together in panic, and the system crashed. Now it has eased, but cylinders are getting delivered in seven to 10 days, and at a gap of 25 days since the last delivery,” says Sanjukta Saha, a partner of the store.
Till February, cylinders were getting delivered within hours of booking or at most the next day, so the delay in delivery has come as a shock to customers. “Many people would wait till their second cylinder was empty to book another, and these are the families that are suffering now. Also, despite reminders, many never filled their e-KYC forms and that is creating another hassle now,” says Saha, who is returning home daily after midnight these days.
The store is trying to make exceptions for genuine cases, but there are many frivolous ones, too. Saha recounts how a customer made an emergency complaint of gas leak. “The technician rushed over, despite the ongoing crisis, but the resident admitted that there was no leak. He simply wanted to ask how to buy a cylinder in the black!”
This BD Market outlet came up in 1975 and Saha has heard from her father that their worst period was during the Babri Masjid demolition riots, when gas was delivered to police stations and customers had to pick it up from there. “But this current crisis comes a close second,” she says.
Additional reporting by Sudeshna Banerjee
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