From Opinions Desk

US-Israel and Iran war has resulted in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran. India gets 90% of its LPG supply through this Strait. As a result, India has seen an acute shortage of LPG cylinders, which form the lifeline of cooking in both domestic and commercial set ups. In metropolises such as Delhi, the migrant labourers don’t have the documents to get the regular 14 kg cylinder. Hence, they get the 5 kg cylinder on retail which they fill by the kilo. However, because of the recent shortage of LPG supply because gas carrier ships are stuck before the Strait of Hormuz, the migrant labourers have not been able to pay for the price hike of the gas. Even at high price hike, the cylinders re not available. As a result, many migrant labourers are planning to leave the metropolises and go back to their native villages, where they can cook on wood, coal or cowdung cakes, their traditional modes of cooking.

Their migration means that the industrial and domestic work in metropolises may not be done.

Seeing their problem, the government earlier restarted the supply of kerosene oil, which had been stopped many years ago as the government wanted everyone to switch to cooking over gas stove. Burning wood and coal is not feasible in metropolises with dense population and it is not allowed in the apartments of many metropolises. Now the government restarted the supply of kerosene oil and asked the people to use it for cooking if they were not getting LPG. However, even kerosene is quite expensive and not available on a mas basis for a large population. The population of the country has risen many folds in many decades since the supply of kerosene oil was stopped. Hence, it is no longer feasible for a large population to cook on kerosene oil.

Seeing this problem, the government has now increased the retail LPG cylinders of 5 kg. The government has doubled the daily allocation of 5 kg Free Trade LPG (FTL) cylinders for migrant labourers in each state beyond the earlier 20% limit, based on demand. Natural gas supply to industrial and commercial sector networks has been increased by 10% to meet rising demand.

Labourers don’t need any documents to book these 5 kg cylinders. They can just show their Aadhar card and get them.

There are some bottlenecks in this –

Those who have a 14 kg cylinder booking, are able to book them only after 25 days. Often, they are getting these cylinders 15 days after booking. Hence, there is a possibility that they will show Aadhar card and get the 5 kg cylinder instead of the migrant labourers.

Further, even 5 kg cylinders may not be in sufficient numbers. There may be a delay in getting a supply of these 5 kg cylinders as well.

Now there is an announcement of ceasefire in West Asia. However, even if the war stops completely, it will take a long time and a large amount of money and resources to rebuild the oil and gas facilities across West Asia that have been destroyed. This means that even if the war completely stops, the energy crisis across the world will take a long time to completely return to normal.

Countries such as India must speed up their transition to renewable energy and abandon dependence on oil and gas.