"I have been trying to book my cylinder since yesterday,” said Subhash Kumar, a customer waiting in a long queue at a gas agency in North-West Delhi, trying to get an LPG cylinder.

Kumar had come physically to the shop because the app was showing a technical glitch. Kumar isn’t alone. On Thursday, news channels flashed similar images from across the country — people waiting in long queues for the gas cylinder.

While the geographical distance from the West Asia conflict spans thousands of miles, the impact has begun to hit the Indian households, sparking a wave of panic over the shortage of LPG gas cylinders.

The desperation is palpable: those without gas connections are rushing to apply, while existing users are attempting to stockpile.

The Core’s attempt to book an LPG cylinder mirrored this chaos, encountering unreachable booking lines and switched-off service numbers. At a local gas agency in Delhi staff confirmed that servers are struggling under the surge, advising customers to attempt bookings late at night to bypass the congestion.

“It is a difficult situation,” Sujata Sharma, Joint Secretary for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said during a media briefing on Thursday.

Government Denies Shortage

As one of the world’s largest LPG consumers, India produces only a fraction of the LPG it needs domestically. Around 60% of its demand is met through imports, while about 40% is produced locally.

The current supply squeeze follows an effective halt in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf amid the ongoing West Asia conflict. About 90% of India’s imported LPG passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making supplies vulnerable to disruptions in the region.

On Thursday, the 13th day of the ongoing West Asia conflict, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri said that while a mandatory 25-day minimum booking gap has been introduced for urban consumers, the restriction extends to 45 days for households in rural and durgam kshetra (inaccessible) areas.

He added that the panic booking at the distributor and retail level is “driven by consumer anxiety rather than any actual supply shortage.”

On March 9, the government issued an order under the Essential Commodities Act directing all refineries to maximise LPG production.

According to Sharma, “no dry-outs” have been reported on the distribution side, though bookings have “risen manifold” due to panic buying. There are nearly 25,000 LPG distributors across the country, with about 5 million cylinders being delivered daily.

She said that alternate fuel options are being activated to ease pressure on LPG and the government is considering the release of a portion of LPG cylinders for commercial requirements as well.

With the government prioritising domestic supply, commercial use of LPG by users like restaurants and local eateries has been severely hit. The Gig and Platform Service Workers Union (GIPSWU) warns that this has decimated the livelihoods of delivery partners, with the union reporting a staggering 50–60% drop in food delivery orders on platforms like Zomato and Swiggy.

The gig workers union is seeking Rs 10,000 relief from food delivery platforms. “Our members are starving,” Nirmal Gorana, spokesperson for the union, said on social media platform X.

The Urban Shift

This supply-side anxiety is triggering a shift in consumer behaviour toward electric alternatives.

An Amazon India spokesperson confirmed to The Core that sales of induction cooktops have skyrocketed by 30X over the last few days. “Rice cookers and electric pressure cookers are seeing a 4X increase. Air fryers and multi-use vessels are also seeing a 2X increase in sales over a regular day.”

In major metros like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, customers are increasingly leveraging quick-commerce services like Amazon Now to secure these appliances within minutes, signalling a frantic move to de-risk the Indian kitchen from the escalating LPG crisis.

Road Ahead

For long-term sustenance, Karthik Ganesan, Fellow at CEEW, told The Core there is a need for a structural shift across three sectors. This includes tightening CAFE norms (government standards that require automakers to meet a minimum average fuel efficiency level across all the vehicles they sell) and mandating EV share in transport, incentivising industrial electrification of heating and backup systems through subsidies, and transitioning households toward electric cooking.

By replacing fire-based cooking with induction or electric pressure cookers—and eventually exploring in-situ hydrogen — India can reduce long-term reliance on volatile imports and enhance energy security through increased efficiency and domestic electrification.

Sumit Pokharna, VP Fundamental Research, Kotak Securities, suggests that a critical further step to reduce this supply gap will involve securing spot LPG imports from the US and other global suppliers to bypass the regional bottleneck.