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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

MGL imposes 20 pc gas cut on bakeries

Soon, Mumbai to starve of vada-pav, pav-bhaji Mumbai: The city of dreams fueled by vada-pav and pav-bhaji could soon face a nightmarish food crunch. Amid the ongoing commercial LPG crisis, Mumbai’s piped natural gas (PNG) supplier Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) has imposed a 20pc cut in gas offtake by bakeries, forcing scale down of production of laadi-pav, breads and other bakery staples that feed millions daily, plus an ominous price hike soon. The MGL directive follows a central order (March...

MGL imposes 20 pc gas cut on bakeries

Soon, Mumbai to starve of vada-pav, pav-bhaji Mumbai: The city of dreams fueled by vada-pav and pav-bhaji could soon face a nightmarish food crunch. Amid the ongoing commercial LPG crisis, Mumbai’s piped natural gas (PNG) supplier Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL) has imposed a 20pc cut in gas offtake by bakeries, forcing scale down of production of laadi-pav, breads and other bakery staples that feed millions daily, plus an ominous price hike soon. The MGL directive follows a central order (March 9), calling upon all bakeries to restrict their gas consumption to only 80 pc of their average usage over the past six months. The new rule came into effect from March 12, immediately sending alarm bells ringing across Mumbai’s panicky bakery network. In a missive to bakery owners, MGL also indicated that PNG prices would be revised shortly due to “gas pooling” arrangements, with the final rates to be announced after consultations with suppliers and the government. It further warned that any bakery exceeding the new consumption cap could face penal tariffs or even abrupt disconnection of gas supply. For hundreds of bakeries already grappling with a crippling shortage of commercial LPG cylinders, the move served to fuel the prevailing uncertainty. “This could virtually paralyse Mumbai’s food chain, hitting the common masses worst,” warned Khodadad Irani, President of the Indian Bakers Association (IBA). “There are nearly 300 registered bakeries in South Mumbai alone and around 1,000 across the city. Together they produce almost half the city’s daily requirement of around 70 lakh laadi-pavs. More than half of these bakeries depend on LPG to fire their ovens. With LGP supplies disrupted and now PNG curtailed, many may be forced to shut down within days,” a glum Irani told ‘The Perfect Voice.’ He explained the staggering implications of the potential disruption round the corner - on average, each bakery churns out around 1,500 trays (laadis) of pav every day, employs 30-50 workers per unit, and outside the flaming ovens, an entire informal economy thrives on the humble pav. Two Lakh Workers Nearly two lakh delivery workers ferry fresh bread across the city each morning on bicycles and motorcycles, supplying to all from roadside stalls to high-end eateries and corporates. Besides, over six lakh vendors run small stalls selling the city’s beloved yummies - vada-pav, samosa-pav, bhajiya-pav, usal-misal-pav, pav-bhaji, dabelis. “Under such a scenario, if bakeries pause or shut down, there will be huge consequences. Not only will common people suffer, but close to a million livelihoods linked to this ecosystem could be hit,” Irani pointed out. He reminded the authorities how bakeries remained operational during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring a steady supply of bread and pav when Mumbai reeled under lockdown. “We kept our ovens running then despite enormous risks, to ensure Mumbai would not go hungry. But now we are facing a dire fuel shortage, and until commercial LPG quotas are normalized, we simply cannot continue operations,” Irani said grimly. With desperation creeping in both among the bakers and their customers, some bakeries have begun buying LPG cylinders on the black market at three to four times the official price, and others are allegedly diverting domestic cylinders to power their industrial ovens. Ironically, the sector had only recently initiated a painful transition to cleaner fuels - following court-mandated environmental directives in 2025 - by scrapping their traditional coal or wood-fired ovens to invest in PNG-LPG-based systems, or electric powered ovens. “Most of us complied with the shift to eco-friendly fuels. But now those very fuels are scarce. If the situation is not resolved quickly, Mumbai could soon wake up to a shocking reality - a city without pav,” Irani predicted. Neighbourhood bakers fret Local bakers say the crisis threatens not only the supply of laadi-pav but a wide range of popular bakery products that have a ready market. They include: sweet bun-pav, tutti-frutti pav, kharis, rusks, crunchy bruns, toasts, puffs, pastries, brownies, cupcakes, nankhatais, cookies, mini-pizzas, unbranded biscuits, et al. “Mumbai is a crowded city. It cannot survive without bakeries running 24x7. Many people eat only one proper meal at home and rely on street foods and snacks outside. Everything depends on steady fuel supply. If bakeries stop, the entire food chain - from corporate canteens to school kitchens and mass caterers - will be doomed,” fumed a contract baker Mohsin Alvi.

Rahul Gandhi flays Rs 16-lakh-crore banks’ loans write-off

Updated: Jan 29, 2025

Rahul Gandhi

Mumbai: Congress’ Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government for the staggering Rs. 16-lakh-crore write-off by various national, private and urban cooperative banks, on Monday.


Speaking at a ‘Save Constitution Rally’ held in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of waiving off the massive amounts borrowed by big industrialists, “but did not write off the debts of poor farmers, labourers and students”.


The reference was to a report in ‘The Perfect Voice’ (“Banks recover crumbs from bad loans” - JAN. 23) highlighting RTI revelations on how Indian banks had written off over Rs. 16.61 lakh-crore of non-performing assets, while the recovery process was a measly 1.6 percent per annum of this amount.


“You work and toil, you pay the GST, but Chinese goods are sold in India courtesy big corporates here. The youth in China get jobs. Adani-Ambani get the profits while your children are deprived of employment opportunities,” thundered Rahul Gandhi.


He contended that “the peoples’ money is siphoned off from their pockets and lands into the coffers of Adani-Ambani”, raising questions ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament starting this week.


A RTI query by Pune-based businessman Prafful Sarda elicited shocking details of the loans written off by different banks, amounting to a whopping total Rs. 16,61,290-crore (NPAs) from various defaulters for 10 years.

These include around: Rs 12,08,621 crore (Public Sector Banks - PSBs); Rs 4,46,649 crore (Private banks); and Rs 6,020 crore (Urban Cooperative Banks - UCBs).


This was for a period of almost 10 years, from 2014-2015 till Sep. 2024, as per the RTI response to Sarda from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s CPIO Nengneikim Guite.


Accordingly, the actual recovery notched for the last nearly 10 years was crumbs - just Rs 2,68,795 crore – comprising, Rs 2,16,547 crore (of PSBs); Rs 52,248 crore (of Private); though the figures of UCBs is not provided - leaving a huge pile of Rs. 13,92,495 crore, pending recovery.


“From the NPAs written-off (Rs. 16,61,290 crore), the recoveries amounted to an annual average of Rs 21,654 crore (PSBs); and Rs 522 crore (Private), working out to barely 16.17 percent for the last around 10 years. This gives an approximate annual average of a measly 1.6 percent recovery,” Sarda pointed out.


Quoting the RBI’s RTI reply, he added that a major chunk of the write-offs is due to ‘technical/prudential/Advances Under Collection’, but “the banks retain the right to recover from the borrowers in all such cases”.


“The government’s contention is that such write-offs are ‘purely balance sheet management’ strategy. Hence, the borrower’s liability to ‘repay’, or the bank’s right to ‘recover’ is not diminished in any manner. There are specialized teams which follow-up for the recovery processes thereafter,” said Sarda.


As per a 30-year-old policy of the government, all credit-related matters are deregulated with the concerned Banks and their respective Board of Directors, who decide about the loan amount and recovery policy.


“In this scenario, will the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announce stricter norms to pin the accountability on the lenders, right from the managers to the Board of Directors - and in case of NPAs - recover the lost amounts from the banks’ own executives for their lapses and poor judgement,” demanded Sarda.


Sarda and banking activists urge the new RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra to suggest measures under the banking laws to make the top directors, officials and/or external forces who pressurize the banks responsible, liable and punishable within a reasonable time-frame.


They aver that this could help prevent defaulters like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya plus many more who brazenly dupe banks of public money and sneak out of India with political patronage to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth, in future.

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