New Delhi: Amid the Middle East crisis, India’s financial capital, Mumbai, experienced an LPG shortage, with supply waiting times ranging from two to eight
days. The shortage didn’t affect the normal household, as the supply of commercial cylinders in hotels and restaurants had also been halted, dealers confirmed.
The crisis led to panic among the families, as those who were holding two cylinders immediately rushed to the dealer to make the booking for the refill of both cylinders. The LPG domestic cylinders’ bookings have also multiplied two or three times more since Monday morning.
A suburban dealer said that the Union Ministry of Petroleum ordered that domestic consumers have to wait for 25 days to book a new refill after receiving one cylinder.
“It is not like last week when you could book the next cylinder within a day or two. At least the domestic 14.2 kg cylinder is still available. The supply of commercial LPG cylinders has been completely halted since Sunday. This will lead to a crisis for hotels and restaurants who purchase these large cylinders,” the suburban dealer said.
The dealers also confirmed that with the shortages of cylinders, hotels and restaurants have to forcefully buy the domestic cylinders from the black market.
One of the dealers suggested that with hotels rushing into the black market, it would be dangerous, and to stop the illegal activity, the government could charge a higher price for the cylinder, but continue to provide commercial cylinders to them without any mishap.
“In any case, prices of both commercial as well as domestic cylinders was increased by Rs 115 and Rs 60 respectively on Sunday,” he said.
The public rushed to the LPG dealer outlets in Andheri to book domestic cylinders on Monday. Whereas several households were contemplating carrying home an LPG cylinder themselves before the crisis escalates.
