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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Commercial LPG 'evaporates' in Maharashtra

Mumbai : The short supply of commercial LPG cylinders turned ‘grim’ on Wednesday as hundreds of small and medium eateries – on whom the ordinary working Mumbaikars depend on for daily meals – shut down or drastically trimmed menus, on Wednesday.   With an estimated 50,000-plus hotels, restaurants and small food joints, the crunch is beginning to be felt severely, said Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI) vice-president and Hotel and Restaurant Association Western...

Commercial LPG 'evaporates' in Maharashtra

Mumbai : The short supply of commercial LPG cylinders turned ‘grim’ on Wednesday as hundreds of small and medium eateries – on whom the ordinary working Mumbaikars depend on for daily meals – shut down or drastically trimmed menus, on Wednesday.   With an estimated 50,000-plus hotels, restaurants and small food joints, the crunch is beginning to be felt severely, said Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI) vice-president and Hotel and Restaurant Association Western India (HRAWI) spokesperson Pradeep Shetty.   “We are in continuous touch with the concerned authorities, but the situation is very gloomy. There is no response from the Centre or the Ministry of Petroleum on when the situation will ease. We fear that more than 50 pc of all eateries in Mumbai will soon down the shutters. The same will apply to the rest of the state and many other parts of India,” Shetty told  ‘ The Perfect Voice’ .   The shortage of commercial LPG has badly affected multiple sectors, including the hospitality and food industries, mass private or commercial kitchens and even the laundry businesses, industry players said.   At their wits' ends, many restaurateurs resorted to the reliable old iron ‘chulhas’ (stoves) fired by either coal or wood - the prices of which have also shot up and result in pollution - besides delaying the cooking.   Anticipating a larger crisis, even domestic LPG consumers besieged retail dealers in Mumbai, Pune, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Ratnagiri, Kolhapur, Akola, Nagpur to book their second cylinder, with snaky queues in many cities. The stark reality of the 12-days old Gulf war with the disturbed supplies has hit the people and industries in the food supply chains that feed crores daily.   “The ordinary folks leave home in the morning after breakfast, then they rely on the others in the food chain for their lunch or dinner. Many street retailers have also shut down temporarily,” said Shetty.   Dry Snacks A quick survey of some suburban ‘khau gullies’ today revealed that the available items were mostly cold sandwiches, fruit or vegetable salads, cold desserts or ice-creams, cold beverages and packed snacks. Few offered the regular ‘piping hot’ foods that need elaborate cooking, or charging higher than normal menu rates, and even the app-based food delivery system was impacted.   Many people were seen gloomily munching on colorful packets of dry snacks like chips, chivda, sev, gathiya, samosas, etc. for lunch, the usually cheerful ‘chai ki dukaans’ suddenly disappeared from their corners, though soft drinks and tetrapaks were available.   Delay, Scarcity  Maharashtra LPG Dealers Association President Deepak Singh yesterday conceded to “some delays due to supply shortages” of commercial cylinders, but assured that there is no scarcity of domestic cylinders.   “We are adhering to the Centre’s guidelines for a 25 days booking period between 2 cylinders (domestic). The issue is with commercial cylinders but even those are available though less in numbers,” said Singh, adding that guidelines to prioritise educational institutions, hospitals, and defence, are being followed, but others are also getting their supplies.   Despite the assurances, Shetty said that the current status is extremely serious since the past week and the intermittent disruptions have escalated into a near-total halt in supplies in many regions since Monday.   Adding to the dismal picture is the likelihood of local hoteliers associations in different cities like Pune, Palghar, Nagpur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, and more resorting to tough measures from Thursday, including temporary shutdown of their outlets, which have run out of gas stocks.

Another episode of Fadnavis vs Pankaja

Updated: Nov 18, 2024

This time they differ over the BJP’s catchline, ‘Batenge to Katenge’


Fadnavis vs Pankaja

Mumbai: Though multiplicity of voices within Mahayuti over the ‘batenge to katenge’ slogan exposed cracks within the grand alliance, senior BJP leaders have said that attempts are being made to create confusion over the slogans because they have effectively countered the narrative spread by the Congress during the Lok Sabha elections.


BJP Rajya Sabha member and former Chief Minister Ashok Chavan had said, “There is no relevance of this (slogan). Slogans are given at election time. This particular slogan is not in good taste and I don’t think people will appreciate it. Personally speaking, I am not in favour of such slogans.”


Another prominent leader from Marathwada, BJP MLC Pankaja Munde, too in an interview given to some news channels, had said, “Frankly, I won’t support it just because I belong to the same party. My belief is that we should work on development alone. A leader’s job is to make every living person on this land as our own. Therefore, we need not bring any such topic to Maharashtra.”


While DCM and NCP leader Ajit Pawar, too had earlier voiced differences over this slogan saying that, “The North (India) may accept this, not us. We have people with different backgrounds in our state. I am of the opinion that such things should not be said.”


Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, however, while interacting with news channels, blamed the ‘pseudo secular’ environment in which the leaders were for the long time for their dislike towards the slogan and also said that they must not have realized the how positive those slogans are.


“In politics narratives need to be countered. In the Lok Sabha polls, Congress indulged in vote jihad. Fatwas were issued by maulvis and along with that, Congress created divisions along caste lines. That means on the one hand, they polarised Muslims, and on the other, divided Hindus. Historically whenever there was a division of society, the country was divided and society suffered. So, I think ‘batenge toh katenge’ and ‘ek hain toh safe hain’ are positive slogans for unity and there is nothing wrong with it,” Fadnavis said. “Ajit Pawar, Ashok Chavan come from a different ideology. They had been surrounded with pseudo-secular groups for a long time. Hence, they’re unable to understand the deeper meaning behind Yogi Adityanath’s ‘batenge to katenge’ call. We’ll help them understand,” he added.


Regarding Pankaja Munde, he said that he has spoken to her and she explained to him that she just wanted to project the work done by the Mahayuti government than to speak about the slogans and divisive forces in the society.


This is another chapter in the feud between Fadnavis and Pankaja which is going on since a decade when the former became the Chief Minister in 2014. When they were in the same government there was a public war of words between them over Twitter. Off late, Pankaja had announced that she was fighting a ‘Dharma Yuddha’ within the party. Without naming Fadnavis she had equated him with Kauravas who had ill-intension towards their cousins, the Pandavas.


Fadnavis also said that the slogans are very much relevant since the OBCs comprise of 350 castes while the STs comprise of 54 castes and the BJP has been appealing all these communities to stay united.

A senior RSS leader, who doesn’t want to be named, said that the slogans have effectively countered the narrative created by the Congress during Lok Sabha polls. “It is probably due to this that attempts are being made to create confusion over the slogans,” he added.

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