Ranchi homemaker Talat Parveen cooks in her kitchen on Friday while her niece Zainab gives her company. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Homemaker Talat Parveen (35) of Ranchi’s Jail More is busy planning a shopping list — induction cooker, a microwave oven, separators for the family pressure cooker.

The subsidised domestic LPG cylinder cap of six per year has the mother of two teenagers worried, but she is thinking smart. “We normally buy 12 cylinders a year at the rate of Rs 435 each. Our annual LPG budget of Rs 5,220 will double if I am not careful,” she said.

So she and her husband Md Shaheen, who owns an electronic store opposite Plaza Cinema and makes around Rs 25,000 a month, are working out ways to cook smartly and save on fuel.

“We will not cook rice and dal separately. Instead, we will buy separators for our pressure cooker and cook them together. Also, we will buy a microwave oven and an induction cooker to take the burden off our gas stove,” she said.

Shaheen also rents out his shop premises to a coaching institute. The extra money will come useful, he said. “Otherwise, I think our expenditure will overshoot our earnings,” he said.

Is there any upside to the Centre’s fuel hike?

“I was unable to decide where to curtail cost — everything from milk, vegetables, grocery to school fees is important. Then, my daughter Alice, a Class XII student of Oxford Public School, came up and hugged me. She told me, mamma, I’ll give tuition to kids to help you and papa out,” smiled the mother.

Shaheen added that both the children — Fahad (13), a seventh grader at Manan Vidya and his sister Alice — had behaved very sensibly.

“We are all sitting and planning out our budget. Yes, LPG cap and diesel hike are big blows to middle class people like us with school-going children. Yet, we can’t compromise on the needs of the kids in their formative years,” said the father.