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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.

Mumbai’s High-Stakes Civic War

In the world’s most frenetic city, controlling the BMC means controlling the future.

Beneath Mumbai’s glittering skyline and frantic pace, an intense battle is unfolding for the control of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), India’s richest civic body. Long the fiefdom of the undivided Shiv Sena, whose founder Balasaheb Thackeray embodied its Marathi identity, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now covets it.


With an annual budget exceeding Rs. 52,000 crore, control of the BMC is much more than municipal governance. It is about commanding resources and positioning for the future.


Since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have transformed the BJP into a relentless electoral machine, seeking to dominate not only Parliament but every rung of Indian governance. Their goal now is to consolidate power at the grassroots, beginning with urban strongholds like Mumbai.


Success has not come easily. It took a decade after forming the national government to install a BJP Chief Minister in Delhi. Maharashtra, too, has seen BJP-led governments, but the mayor’s seat in Mumbai has remained out of reach - a gap that Devendra Fadnavis, the party’s most formidable leader in the state, is determined to close.


The Shiv Sena’s long grip on Mumbai has weakened since Balasaheb’s death in 2012 and its 2022 split into two factions – one led by Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT) and the second, by Deputy CM Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena. The split has opened new opportunities for the BJP but also new complications.


Case in point: Eknath Shinde’s recent meeting with Raj Thackeray, leader of theMaharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). Despite having zero electoral clout, Raj continues to have a significant sway in Mumbai's Marathi heartland.


His growing warmth with Shinde may signal a political chess move to cut into BJP’s voter base or bargain for more municipal control. Fadnavis isn’t taking any chances.


To tighten BJP’s grip on Mumbai, there’s buzz around a change in the city’s partyleadership. Pravin Darekar, a senior BJP leader with roots in Mumbai’scooperative banking sector, is being seen as a frontrunner for the post of Mumbai BJP president.


Darekar reportedly has a good working relationship with Raj Thackeray. This could help Fadnavis neutralize any growing rapport between Shinde and Raj.


While Fadnavis may be willing to cede the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to ally Ajit Pawar, Mumbai and Nagpur are non-negotiable. The latter civic body, especially, is Fadnavis’s stronghold - politically, emotionally and symbolically.


Behind the scenes, the BJP’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is quietly observing the run-up to the civic polls. Its influence in shaping public discourse and mobilizing workers is crucial. RSS leader Bhayyaji Joshi’s controversial statement in Ghatkopar wherein he remarked that not everyone in Mumbai needed to speak Marathi shows how carefully crafted narratives can spark debates, define identity politics and influence electoralbehaviour.


The RSS knows how to move without making noise. In a city stitched together by dozens of languages and loyalties, it is all about timing, about shaping sentiment quietly.


The Sena (UBT), battered but not broken, still leans heavily on Mumbai’s civic machinery. Lose the BMC, and the party bleeds money, power and relevance. Fadnavis and the BJP understand this better than anyone.


On the other side, Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray is trying to redraw the fight as a referendum on ambition. He has accused the BJP of mismanaging the city, of letting Mumbai drift while other states build economic hubs like Gujarat’s GIFT City. His bet is that voters will want a city that thinks bigger, not just fights dirtier.


But for now, the promises of transformation are background noise. The BMC election is about command: who runs the streets, the pipes, the schools - and who gets to decide who eats first.


The BJP, fresh off a commanding victory in the 2024 state elections, must now prove it can manage not just its enemies, but its allies too. The Mahayuti coalition that won the Assembly could just as easily splinter when faced with the slower, messier grind of municipal politics.


Young voters will have a hand in what happens next. For them, the BMC is not an abstraction. It is the quality of the water they drink, the time it takes to get to work, the job they may or may not find. In Mumbai, politics is infrastructure. And infrastructure is survival.


In a city where the lights rarely go out, neither does the fight for power.

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