The supply disruption at the Strait of Hormuz has hit Indian consumers. The current LPG shortages in many Indian cities are one such indirect impact. In many major Indian cities like the national capital, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and others, many small food joints are on the brink of shutting down till there is a shortage in commercial LPG supply.
In fact, this shortage of commercial LPG cylinders across parts of Delhi-NCR is pushing restaurants and street vendors into the black market, where prices have surged well above normal levels. A restaurant owner in Gurugram, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told financialexpress.com that he bought a commercial cylinder for Rs 4,000 on Tuesday, but prices in the black market had already climbed higher due to limited stock. Online booking for cylinders has also been halted for five days.
“Cylinders are available for even more than that since stock is limited even in the black market,” the owner said. He added that a friend who runs another outlet recently purchased 60 cylinders from Meerut at Rs 3,600 per cylinder and later sold 20 cylinders to fellow restaurant owners for Rs 4,500 each as supply tightened. The spike in prices is forcing many operators to scramble for fuel just to keep kitchens running.
The prices in the black market have increased across cities. “In Bengaluru, people are asking Rs 7,000–Rs 8,000 for a single cylinder,” Swaroop Murgod, owner of The Café Buddha and Kitab Café, told Financialexpress.com.
“No LPG available in Vasant Kunj, a clear decline by vendors that we can’t supply. 80% of our Menu on Tadka Rani is offline due to Tandoor Dependency,” Gagandeep Singh Sapra, owner, Tadka Rani- a food joint in South Delhi, posted on X.
Restaurants running out of fuel in days
For many restaurants, the shortage has immediate operational consequences. The Gurugram-based restaurant owner said that a typical outlet receiving 70–80 orders a day uses one large cylinder in about two days. For busier restaurants handling 150 or more orders daily, a cylinder may not last even a full day.
“In such a situation, the shortage is causing them to shut operations,” he said. He added that the problem has been building over the past three to four days, but many restaurants began feeling the real impact only on Tuesday.
Smaller vendors hit the hardest
Street vendors and smaller food businesses appear to be facing the brunt of the disruption. In Noida, several vendors told financialexpress.com that the smaller LPG cylinders, typically retailing for about Rs 900, are currently being sold for as much as Rs 2,300. Commercial cylinders, many people we spoke to say, are selling for Rs 4,500 or more.
As a result, many small vendors have temporarily shut their stalls. “Several smaller vendors are invisible,” one vendor said, indicating that many have closed operations until supply improves.
Several sweet shop owners across Mumbai and Delhi, whom we spoke to, highlighted concerns about the uncertain LPG cylinder supply timeline as well as the prohibitive costs in the black market.
Switching to electric cooking not easy
While electric stoves may seem like an alternative, many restaurants say shifting away from LPG is not practical in the short term. The Gurugram restaurant owner said switching to electric equipment would increase electricity costs by more than 1.5 times because of the number of orders they handle. Electric cooking can also slow down preparation times. “It will take longer to prepare for an induction,” he said.
Another challenge is infrastructure. “Cooking on induction requires different kinds of utensils, ideally flat-top ones, which will require me to change my entire set of utensils too,” he added.
According to Murgod, shortage has also pushed up the cost of alternative cooking equipment. “Less than a year ago, the same induction stove cost around Rs 10,000. Today it is selling for nearly Rs 35,000, and there is barely any stock left,” he said.
He alleged that the current situation appears to be artificially created. “Large companies have already stocked their supplies and are now selling some of their stock at higher prices to make extra money,” he said.
“For small restaurants like ours, shifting an already operational kitchen from LPG to electricity is not practical at this stage,” Agrim Shukla, franchise owner of Khadak Singh Da Dhaba in Sector 83, Gurugram, said. Shukla said installing a commercial electric range of around 7 kWh would cost Rs 30,000–Rs 40,000, while upgrading the electrical load and wiring could require an additional Rs 5,000–Rs 8,000, besides causing operational disruption. Much of the cookware currently used in LPG-based kitchens would also need to be replaced to function efficiently on electric burners, he added.
Electric burners also take longer to heat up and recover, which can slow down cooking in busy kitchens. “We handle around 100–150 orders a day, so maintaining service timelines would become difficult while electricity costs would also rise significantly,” Shukla said. Given the uncertainty around LPG availability in the current situation, he added that making such a major operational shift is difficult for small operators right now.
Price increases difficult on food apps
Restaurants also face another hurdle: they cannot immediately pass on rising fuel costs to customers. According to the restaurant owner, most orders now come through food aggregator platforms, where price changes typically take up to 48 hours to reflect for users. “Suddenly increasing the prices will make no sense at all,” he said, adding that restaurants are forced to absorb the higher fuel costs in the short term.
Industry monitoring supply disruptions
Restaurant operators say the industry is closely watching the situation. Arjun Sagar Gupta, founder of The Piano Man, told us that the company is monitoring supply and speaking with vendors to assess whether disruptions could escalate. “At the moment, we are closely monitoring the situation and are in active conversations with our LPG vendors to understand whether there will be any immediate disruptions in supply,” Gupta said.
While his outlets in Delhi have not yet faced a major operational impact, the possibility of supply constraints is a concern because much of the restaurant kitchen infrastructure is designed for gas-based cooking. “If LPG availability does become constrained, it could affect certain aspects of kitchen operations since a significant portion of restaurant cooking infrastructure is built around gas-based equipment,” he said.
In such cases, restaurants may try to rely more on electric equipment, though Gupta noted the transition is not always seamless. “Some cooking techniques and menu items are specifically designed for gas-based cooking. If the situation persists, operators may need to rationalise parts of the menu or adjust cooking processes to maintain consistency and service standards,” he said.
Gupta added that PNG supply remains active, though the industry is still trying to understand how long LPG disruptions could last. “Today the supplies have stopped… so we are trying to identify what all can be made without gas within the menu and trying to get information on when supplies will resume,” he said.
Restaurants dependent on LPG cylinders
According to Amit Bagga, co-founder of Daryaganj Restaurants and co-chapter head of the Delhi chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), restaurants typically receive cooking gas through two channels: PNG (piped natural gas) and commercial LPG cylinders.
In Delhi, some mall-based outlets and high-street restaurants already operate on PNG where the network is available. However, a large number of restaurants still depend primarily on LPG cylinders, Bagga said. “The current challenge is the availability of LPG cylinders, which in many cases are either in short supply or being sold at a premium in the market,” he said.
Bagga added that recent national news coverage has also created a sense of panic, which could potentially lead to hoarding of cylinders.
Limited inventory could trigger closures
Restaurants generally maintain very limited LPG reserves. “Most restaurants do not maintain more than one to two days of LPG inventory,” Bagga said. If supply disruptions continue, he warned that closures could follow, affecting both businesses and workers.
“If the situation is not addressed promptly, it could lead to restaurant closures, which would have wider implications as the livelihoods of restaurant staff could be affected,” he said. Bagga also noted that some notifications suggest commercial establishments may be given lower priority in cylinder supply, though he said this may be difficult to enforce effectively on the ground.
Larger chains less affected—for now
Not all operators have felt the impact yet. A restaurant chain with pan-India operations told us that it has not experienced any supply disruptions so far and described the situation as still being in a “very premature stage”.
However, the company said its teams are working around the clock to prepare contingency plans to ensure operations are not disrupted if the shortage worsens. For many smaller operators across Delhi-NCR, though, the immediate concern remains far more basic: securing the next cylinder to keep their kitchens running.