Kolkata’s not letting the LPG crisis cancel Poila Boishakh

With LPG supply shortages, city restaurants and street stalls are quietly rewiring their kitchens — just in time for the biggest food moment on the Bengali calendar. Festive pressure buildsFor over a month and a half, Kolkata’s food industry has been managing a slow burn – and with Poila Boishakh round the corner, the pressure has peaked.

For larger restaurant groups, the response has been strategic.

Debaditya Chaudhury, director of Chowman and Oudh 1590, shifted early to a hybrid model – reducing gas dependency while scaling up electric cooking. “Tandoors are being moved to electric or charcoal, while several Chinese items are being cooked on induction cooktops,” he says. “With our volume of sales, depending only on LPG would be impossible.” On pricing, Chaudhury is firm: “It’s principally wrong to increase prices – we won’t do that.”

At 6 Ballygunge Place, the solution is structural. “We’re going buffet-only, temporarily stopping à la carte options to control fuel consumption and streamline output,” says owner Swaminathan Ramani, adding, “Despite higher operational burden, pricing has remained unchanged as Kolkata is a price-sensitive market.”Most restaurants in the city have shifted 70% operations to induction-based cooking as a stopgap measure– Sudesh Poddar, President, Hotels and Restaurants Association of Eastern India

Sector V: The spot that got hit the hardestIn Sector V, where office goers and college students dictate the lunch rush, the crisis has hit hardest of all.

Here, gas supply has not slowed — it has stopped entirely. “There is no LPG at all! Cooking on the stove has slowed down the entire process,” says Saran, owner of Saran Sandwich Corner. Every order takes longer, every queue stretches further. The financial barrier is stark. “If you don’t have ₹10,000 to ₹20,000 in your pocket, you can’t buy cylinders,” says Raju of Kartik Fast Food and Tea — making it clear that bulk procurement simply isn’t an option for small vendors.

Most stalls in Sector V have absorbed what they can and passed on the rest — a ₹10 to ₹15 rise across food items and tea. “We have increased prices in order to sustain,” says Raju. Many vendors near the Calcutta Stock Market remember corporation officials visiting months ago: “They said they’ll help us with LPG cylinders but nothing was done,” says Bidyut, a vendor.Clay stoves and curated platesNot every kitchen has gone electric. Several restaurants have turned to traditional mitti chulhas for dishes that demand slow, sustained heat.

“Mutton curries and bhorta, which benefit from long hours over a steady flame, are now being shifted to clay-based setups,” says Sutapa Barua of Himur Heshel. “Menus have been strategically trimmed to reduce cooking load, but certain Poila Boishakh staples are simply indispensable.

” Chef Ranjan Biswas of Saptapadi says: “We’ve learnt to navigate this. During festivals, we rely more on electric stoves and alternative methods.

This time, that dependence is higher, especially for slow-cooked dishes, which we’ve shifted to induction or traditional chulhas.”The streets that kept going with a ₹5 price differenceIn Dacre’s Lane, where lunch has always been loud, cheap and reliable, the familiar hiss of gas burners has been replaced by the crackle of coal. Vendors wait up to 25 days for a cylinder that may never arrive. Most have quietly switched to coal chulhas and backup stoves rather than shut down.

“Gas is being used as little as possible. Coal ovens are doing most of the work,” says a worker at Chitto Babur Dokan. Chop, beguni and Chinese items have vanished from several stalls.

“The Chinese section had to be closed. The Indian section is still running,” says Bappa Saha of Ramesh Babur Dokan. Near the Calcutta High Court, South Indian food stalls have been hit hardest. “Without gas, we can’t make everything at once.

When there is a crowd, it becomes a big challenge to complete orders,” says M Mohan Thevar of Jay Baba Bhutnath. Dosa prices have risen from ₹40 to ₹45.We’ve made adjustments to optimise menus & kitchen processes to ensure customers don’t have to pay more– Moushumi SircarSweet shops draw the lineAt Banchharam’s, the crisis has meant hard editorial decisions on the menu. “Fifteen to 20 items are not being made and it will remain this way until things become normal,” says Ratan Das.

Only four to five varieties of sandesh are currently in production. Cashew-based sweets, sitabhog, korai shutir kochuri and flavoured sandesh — strawberry, chocolate, mango — have all disappeared. They will stay off the menu through Nabobarsho.

For legacy sweet shops doubling as restaurants, the instinct is the same — protect the product, absorb the cost. “Poila Boishakh is too important for us to slow down. The LPG crisis is real, but we have tightened our operations,” says Moushumi Sircar of Balaram Mullick & Radharaman Mullick andBonne Femme.Dacre’s Lane is known for cheap, quality food. We’ve only increased prices by around ₹5– Sheikh Habib Ali, Metro Roll Centre-Smritika Banerjee