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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.

MVA’s poll guarantees; promises Rs 3,000 per month to women

MVA’s poll guarantees

Mumbai: Seeking to outdo the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, the Opposition's Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi alliance on Wednesday promised women in the state Rs 3,000 per month and free travel in state transport buses.


Under the Krishi Sammruddhi Yojana, farmers will get loan waiver up to Rs 3 lakh and Rs 50,000 as an incentive for regular repayment of crop loans, the Shiv Sena (UBT)-NCP(SP)-Congress alliance announced ahead of the November 20 state assembly elections.


Allowance of Rs 4,000 per month for unemployed youth, health insurance up to Rs 25 lakh and free medicines were the other guarantees announced at a gathering addressed by top MVA leaders at the BKC ground here.


Notably, the BJP-Shiv Sena-NCP government in Maharashtra currently pays Rs 1,500 per month to eligible women under its flagship `Ladki Bahin' scheme and has promised to increase the amount to Rs 2,100 if it retained power.


The MVA also promised to conduct a caste census in the state if elected to power, and remove the 50 percent cap on reservations if elected to power at the Centre.


Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on this occasion that the present politics in the country is a fight between the ideologies of the RSS/BJP and Opposition's INDIA grouping.


NCP (SP) chief Sharad Pawar said never before Maharashtra had seen such a decline in all spheres of life.

Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray said the MVA will ensure that the prices of five essential commodities -- edible oil, sugar, rice, wheat, daal -- remain stable.


Yasin Malik’s wife writes to Rahul Gandhi

Lahore: Mushaal Hussein Mullick, wife of incarcerated chief of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), on Wednesday asked Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi to initiate a debate in Parliament for her husband, who she claimed can bring peace to Jammu and Kashmir.


Mullick, the former assistant to prime minister on human rights and women empowerment, wrote a letter to Gandhi drawing attention towards Malik’s trial in a “three-decades-old sedition case in which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has demanded death sentence for him.”


Raut’s request to Pawar

Sanjay Raut on Wednesday called Nationalist Congress Party (SP) president Sharad Pawar the ‘Bhishma Pitamah’ of parliamentary politics and disapproved of any plan by him to retire from active politics.


Talking to reporters, Raut said currently there was no Indian leader with so much parliamentary experience as Pawar (83), who has been in electoral politics for nearly 60 years now.


Raut disclosed that the former Union minister had expressed this desire (to retire from active politics) before him, too.


“I told him not to bring this to his mind. Experience, and not age, that matters here. ”

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