All That Gas

With lives being disrupted across India due to the gas shortage linked to the ongoing West Asia conflict, long queues can be spotted outside LPG distributers in some neighbourhoods. Daily-wage workers, homemakers, street vendors and restaurant owners line up, hoping to secure a cooking gas cylinder. Others turn to the informal market, where cylinders are reportedly being sold at double or triple their regulated prices

- Zenaira Bakhsh & Mrinalini Dhyani

ACROSS several neighbourhoods in New Delhi, queues begin forming long before sunrise. By 4 am., people from vastly different backgrounds, daily-wage workers, homemakers, street vendors and small restaurant owners, are already waiting outside LPG distributors, hoping to secure a cooking gas cylinder. Many return home only by the afternoon, empty-handed.

In the absence of cooking gas, households are improvising in ways that feel like a step back in time. In some neighbourhoods, families are pooling resources and cooking together. Elsewhere, people have begun using coal, firewood and even cow dung to prepare basic meals. For many, ensuring two meals a day has suddenly become an exhausting daily struggle.

The scenes unfolding across parts of the capital stand in stark contrast to the trajectory India's energy policy has followed over the past decade. India now has over 32.83 crore domestic LPG connections, up from 14.52 crore in 2014, marking a major expansion in clean cooking access.

The current disruption is driven by an LPG shortage linked to escalating tensions in West Asia. It began after US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, 2026 triggered retaliation from Iran, disrupting commercial shipping across the region.

At the centre is the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route through which nearly one-fifth of global oil and gas supplies pass. For India, it carries 40-50 per cent of crude imports, about half of LNG, and a significant share of LPG shipments.

The immediate consequence has been a sudden squeeze in cooking gas supplies across cities like Delhi. Panic buying has surged among households, while restaurants and street food vendors, who rely almost entirely on 19 kg commercial cylinders to run ovens, grills and fryers, have been among the hardest hit.