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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.

The Cousins of Beed

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

Beed

When Pankaja Munde and Dhananjay Munde shared the stage on Dussehra this year, the reunion resulted in great surprise. For years, they had traded veiled barbs against each other. Until last year, Dhananjay, who is minister for agriculture in Maharashtra, was on the opposite side of the political spectrum as an NCP man while Pankaja is a member of the legislative council from the BJP. Now, on the cusp of the Maharashtra legislative assembly elections, the warring cousins, both, claiming a right to Gopinath Munde’s political legacy, had come together despite being in different political parties, albeit in the same Mahayuti.


Gopinath Munde cut his teeth in politics as a member of the ABVP during his student days. He is believed to have met Pramod Mahajan then who was also a budding youth leader of the saffron party. The two became friends and then family as Munde married Mahajan’s younger sister. Those who have watched the duo’s rise say that Munde truly stepped out of his more charismatic brother-in-law’s shadow when he undertook the ‘Sangharsh Yatra’ in 1994-95 against Sharad Pawar’s government, making the former chief minister his target. He managed to mobilise the masses and emerged as a formidable leader of the OBC. Munde went on to become the deputy chief minister in the first Shiv Sena-BJP government in the state from 1995-1999 and won a reputation for being an effective home minister. He was appreciated for supporting the Mumbai police in launching an aggressive counter-attack against the underworld that was running riot in the city back then. In contrast, Mahajan busied himself with the top echelons of the BJP, holding fort in New Delhi as a high-profile union minister and the party’s treasurer who was also the brain behind the ‘rath yatra’. Together, they stitched and preserved the BJP’s alliance with the Sena, maintaining a warm rapport with Bal Thackeray.


 The Gen-next of the families have made their mark in politics. Mahajan’s daughter Poonam won the elections to the Lok Sabha in 2014 and 2019. Munde’s older daughter Pankaja was a former minister in Maharashtra but lost the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. His younger daughter Pritam won the Parliamentary elections from Beed by a record margin after Munde passed away in 2014. She was a MP for two terms but was denied a ticket this year. Munde’s nephew, Dhananjay worked at the grassroots level for the BJP in Beed for over a decade but quit the party in 2013 to join the NCP.


He was peeved by his uncle’s decision to overlook his claim to the Parli Lok Sabha constituency seat in the elections and instead, promote his daughter Pankaja. In 2023, he supported Ajit Pawar when the NCP was split and went on to become the agriculture minister in the current Mahayuti government. The two cousins have been warring for over a decade, each trying to reclaim the legacy left behind by Munde.

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