No cylinders for 11 days, says popular restaurant

Mumbai: The war in West Asia has affected the commercial restaurants all over India. It has led to the shortage of the LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) supply to local restaurants in Mumbai.

One such restaurant experiencing this disruption of supply is the Stadium Restaurant located at Churchgate. Owned by an Iranian, the restaurant started in 1946 a year before independence. After 80 years, the restaurant is very well-known in South Mumbai and is mostly packed throughout the day.

India is totally dependent on West Asian countries for the LPG, PNG (Piped Natural Gas), CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), fuel, etc. Due to the shortage the government has evoked the Essential Commodities Act,1995, that allows the government to control all the supply. The government has said that their main focus is domestic gas supply which has caused disruption in the commercial gas supply.

When asked to the Chief Manager of the restaurant about the crisis, he told the The Perfect Voice on the basis of anonymity that we are managing the days somehow. He mentioned that the restaurant needs two cylinders per day, totalling to 60 to 62 cylinders per month. A commercial 19 kg cylinder costs around Rs 2000 to the restaurant.

“We do not have any cylinder now and it has been 10-11 days since we ordered cylinders but there is not one delivered yet,” he added.

If not cylinder then what? To this question the manager replied, “We have switched to Electric Induction that has led us to reduce the items we serve.”

He said that there around 100-120 items on the menu and it is now drastically reduced to serve only 20-24 items, resulting in a 20 per cent drop.

When questioned about the change in number of customers, he said, “Now there amid crisis we are facing a 50 to 60 per cent drop in the customers.”

The term, ‘fog of war’, where a lot of rumors are spread amid war, has now travelled to India from West Asia as the manager mentioned, “More than the gas the rumours are affecting us, and we are only focusing on what the government says.”

The Chief Manager also mentioned about the Black Marketing of cylinders. He said, “The insufficient supply can maybe because of these black-marketing guys, because if new ships are coming and the gas is still less then, it might be a conspiracy by them.”