Banana, Bread For Food, Salt With Diesel For Cooking: How Mumbai's Working Class Is Fighting The LPG Crisis

In the scorching heat of March, Ramlal Yadav, 37, stepped out for lunch around 2.15 pm on Monday. He went to the nearby Select Restaurant where he eats a Thali for Rs. 70 every day, something he can afford.  But the restaurant was closed, Yadav got disappointed looking at its half-pulled shutter and a cat sitting outside. The hungry young man bought two namkeen packets, a tetra pack of buttermilk and a biscuit packet from an adjacent shop and started walking back to his factory. Yadav works in a metal company near Ansa Industrial Estate in Andheri East. 

‘Select’ restaurant is the only option for him to have a filling meal at a cheaper price. The restaurant has been closed since Saturday due to commercial LPG cylinder shortage. There are no small street snack  vendors in the neighbourhood. Yadav would have to walk at least half a kilometre to the main junction even to buy a vada pao. 

“We only get a 30-minute lunch break, and I spend five to 10 minutes talking to my wife and children on the phone. How can I travel that far to get vada pav? I’ll just eat namkeen etc for now. I don’t know when the hotel will reopen.” said Yadav. 

Another young man who works at a construction site, came to the same shop. There was a similar disappointment in his eyes after looking at a restaurant’s half-closed shutters. He bought a small bread packet for Rs 25, 5 sachets of Jam for Rs 10 and returned to his construction site across the street. 

Upon asking, about eating bread-Jam, he said, “I don’t have any other option. For four days, street vendors near my home have also shut. I used to buy Poha, idli sambar in the morning from them for 20 rupees. Now, I eat a banana and come to work.”

Yadav and the construction worker both do precarious jobs which demand heavy physical labour. Sustaining on substitutes like banana, bread- jam, namkeen is not a sustainable option for them, neither does it satiate their hunger.  They earn between Rs. 12,000 to 15,000 a month. Both migrants from Uttar Pradesh have to send a significant chunk of their salary back home. Rs 5,000 is their expense limit for their shared rent and food for a month. 

“How many days can we keep eating bananas and bread? If I were in my village, I could at least cook some rice and eat. Here, I don’t have my own house or even a proper place to stay — where will I get a gas cylinder from?” asks a construction worker. 

Says Aarif Khan, 19 a migrant worker who works in a Select restaurant, “The hotel may not be open for the next 2-3 days. The only cylinder that we have now is being used for making Dal-Chawal for us five workers. I work in the owner’s shop also, but don’t know what will happen to the hotel workers if everything isn’t streamlined soon.” 

Khan was pointing out that an unemployment crisis may hit  the workers soon. 

Jitu Singh’s chai Tapari in Andheri wasn’t as crowded as every day, though it was a usual tea time around 4.30 pm. A couple of auto drivers had tea and paid Rs 12 for a cup each. The same tea was being sold for Rs. 10 four days ago. The LPG crisis due to the US- Israel- Iran war is directly affecting Singh’s everyday income. 

“My income anyway goes down during the summer. Since the past week, I've started using a household use cylinder, buying from an acquaintance who doesn’t need it, but if the police notice it, they will take action," says Singh. 

A fellow neighbour - a vada pao vendor, called Jitu, while he was making another batch of tea. "Officers are conducting an inspection. They have just seized a red cylinder and stove across the street, remove your red cylinder and hide it.” 

A Vada Pao seller who doesn’t wish to be named, warned Singh out of concern that the car of the food and civil supplies inspector was approaching. Within a blink of an eye Singh removed the red cylinder, hid it behind a tin and a compound wall adjacent to his stall and attached his blue coloured small cylinder. 

Red coloured cylinders are used for individual/household consumption and blue coloured ones are for commercial purposes. In the current situation the union government has prioritised the supply of household LPG over commercial demand. Dozens of street food vendors and small restaurants in Andheri Outlook spoke to aren’t receiving any commercial cylinders. Many of them have temporarily shut down, a few have cut down the menu to sandwiches, Maggi and momos.  

Both Singh and his neighbourhood vada pao vendor use red colour cylinders meant for household consumption for making tea and snacks out of desperation  that is created by market fluctuations and the demand-supply disruption due to the  war in West Asia.

“I used to get a 19-litre capacity commercial cylinder for 2000 rupees till a week ago. Now it costs between Rs 3,800 and Rs 4,000 and since last two days even that is not available. How can I afford Rs 4,000 just for a cylinder? So, I stocked one household cylinder from a person whom I know. He got it for 1000 rupees but sold it to me for 2000 rupees. There was no option but to buy, to keep  the shop running.” 

Shutting down a stall for a few days wasn’t an option for Singh. "It's very difficult to set up a business in Mumbai, if I don't show up at a stall even for two days, there are others who can claim my space on the street," he says. 

Going back to his village in Rajasthan isn’t an option for Singh. He has no agricultural land to grow anything and his only livelihood option is a tea stall. Singh’s ordeal reveals how hunger and food security are a challenge for migrants who come from a marginalised background and a drought-prone state. 

Since Singh doesn’t have a household cylinder connection, he now has to buy a cylinder in the black market. The prices even in the black market are skyrocketing. He has a kerosene stove at home, but kerosene isn’t being sold in the market these days, therefore he buys diesel for Rs 90 a litre, mixes salt in it and uses it for a kerosene stove. Why salt? we asked. 

“Without salt the burner may get very high flames due to diesel and that's risky," explains Singh. 

Both Singh and the Vada Pao vendor have raised the price by Rs 2 , but they are unhappy about it. 

“I have been selling Vada Pao for 15 rupees, now I made it for 17. I still don’t make a profit, but this is a working class area, if I make it 20 rupees then no one will buy it,” said the vada pao seller. 

Vendors like Singh, who feed hundreds of people, are hoping to tide over the tough times. During a break when there are no customers, Singh watches news on his mobile, hoping to hear the good news that war in Iran has ended. But peace is elusive in West Asia.