- Restaurants in Tamil Nadu face LPG shortage, with stock lasting only one to two days
- Hotels in Tamil Nadu cut menu items to reduce LPG consumption amid supply issues
- Tamil Nadu Hotels Association urges government to treat LPG as essential and provide subsidies
Restaurants across Tamil Nadu are staring at a bleak future with existing stock expected to last only for one or two days due to a lack of commercial LPG cylinder supply amid the West Asia conflict, hoteliers said on Tuesday.
Some of the hotels and restaurants have already cut the number of food items offered in order to reduce the LPG use, officials said.
The Tamil Nadu Hotels Association, a body representing the hotels and restaurants in the State, on March 7, appealed to the Centre to withdraw its order instructing oil marketing companies to suspend commercial LPG cylinders.
"We requested the Central Government to treat this as an essential commodity and give gas cylinders on the rational basis. Otherwise, there is no other option for us except closing down the hotels. We also request the State Government also to give concession in the electricity considering as an industrial tariff. We also request the governments to give some subsidy to solar panels also. Then if it is possible, we can shift to power by installing the induction stoves," M Venkata Subbu, Tamil Nadu Hotels Association president told PTI.
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Karnataka Hotels Association fears impact on the macro economy. "That is creating a kind of crisis and this is going to have a cascading effect on the farmers who was growing vegetables, the labor, and the industry overall because everything is going to affected because of the gas shortage," says Subramanya Holla, association president.
Holla further demanded the government to provide partial support so that hotels can continue operations even if it at a smaller scale.
Hotels in Telangana also have started facing a shortage of commercial LPG, with industry associations warning of disruption in operations if the fuel supply is not normalised soon.
"All hotels are facing the crisis. Maybe, bigger ones can manage for a week if they have kept the stock but the small ones cannot run after tomorrow. We don't have another plan also because we got to know about this only yesterday. We would planned some induction stoves but now we have no chance," Venkat Reddy, Telangana Hotels Association president told PTI.
He added, "We request the government to ensure supply like usual. If not possible, ensure partial supply even if it at higher price."
Meanwhile, hotels in Andhra say the impact is minimal. "Now the supply is partially cut, we are given six cylinders in place of 10. There are demands to provide as per our demands. State civil supplies minister assured a solution for us... There are issues in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana, but we have not been impacted like them," says RV Swamy, Andhra Star Hotels Association president.
On March 6, the government invoked, sparingly used emergency powers to direct oil refineries to ramp up LPG production to increase the availability of domestic cooking gas to avoid potential disruptions due to the widening West Asia conflict.
On March 7, the prices of domestic LPG and commercial cylinders were hiked by Rs 60 and Rs 114.5, respectively.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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