BHUBANESWAR: As the West Asia conflict disrupted LPG supplies across the country, the hospitality industry in the state is staring at a huge crisis with the availability of commercial cylinders slowly thinning.
While some small hotels in Puri claimed to have shut operations, the crisis was building up in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.
Many hotels and restaurants on Tuesday complained that gas agencies refused supply citing non-availability of stock, while others scrambled to pay an extra buck to book their quota for the days to come.
With the industry feeling the pinch, the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Odisha (HRAO) wrote to Union minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri, urging the government to intervene immediately to prevent disruption in cooking gas supply.
Many hotels in the state capital flagged the shortage and said they would find it difficult to run their businesses if the crisis was not urgently addressed.
“We require around 10 cylinders per day. Though supply has remained smooth as of now, any delay will force us to shut down operations,” said Jaya Prakash, manager of Hotel Priya, one of the most popular and oldest restaurants in the state capital. Some restaurants chose to scale down their business for a few days to ration their fuel stock. Small eateries, however, were the worst affected.
Durlabh Bastia, owner of a small eatery in the Mancheswar area, said he was able to procure only one cylinder against his daily requirement of two, for the last three days. No supply was received on Tuesday. “If it is not delivered by tomorrow, I will be forced to shut down my business,” Bastia said.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation’s existing ban on the use of coal and firewood has left vendors and owners of small hotels and eateries in the city even more worried.
Meanwhile, HRAO chairman and hotelier JK Mohanty, in a letter to Puri, said the recent stoppage and restriction in the supply of commercial cooking gas cylinders are creating serious operational challenges for the hospitality industry.
“Hotels and restaurants are highly dependent on the uninterrupted supply of commercial LPG cylinders for their daily kitchen operations. The sudden disruption in supply has severely affected food preparation and service in many establishments,” Mohanty said.