Name: Iran war threatens an Indian industry employing millions
Uploaded: 2026-03-16T21:37:33.000Z
Duration: 17 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of manner

Monica, we know that 60% of LNG comes from the Middle east and most of which actually goes through the Strait of Hormuz.

This war and the disruptions that it's led to in terms of the energy supply chain is hurting India significantly.

As Linda this is a classic story of rising demand, import reliance, as you pointed out, and

You know, gas is as of now, still a very small segment of India's primary energy requirements, about 6% or so.

But it's been growing on the back of schemes promoted by Prime Minister Modi's government to ensure a shift to a cleaner fuel, you know, and

move households away from wood and kerosene and coal fired stoves to, you know, LPG cylinders, as they're called here, which is liquefied petroleum gas.

Now, we've seen demand rise significantly.

As you pointed out, much of this demand is being met through imports, specifically from the Middle east, which has been disrupted at this point in time.

Sourcing base gas has been a bit of a challenge for us.

And this crisis in the Middle east has therefore caught the Indian government somewhat unprepared, if I might say so, because we have been struggling to make sure that there's enough gas for everyone's requirements, as a result of which we've seen cuts first to commercial establishments as the Modi government prioritizes households and, you know, to make sure there's enough cooking gas for homes.

So commercial establishments of a variety have been impacted, from fertilizers to tile manufacturers and to restaurants which have become the face of this crisis because, you know, they are what everyday people use and they are such a large employer.

And there are reports coming in from across the country on how large restaurants, small eateries, they're struggling to cope with this.

And speaking of restaurants, let's get perspective from Zorawa Kalwa, founder and MD and Massive Restaurants and Vice President at National Restaurant association of India.

First of all, give us a sense of how badly the restaurant industry has been impacted.

We know that, you know, restaurants have removed rotis puris from the menu already.

As said, we rely mostly on imports and the imports are almost completely stopped, although some good news is creeping in.

But before that, let me address the size and the importance of the industry.

As Monica said, we're the second largest employer of humans in India.

So that's about 8 million people directly employed, another 8 million through ancillary industries.

We're also a contributor to the GDP in a major way.

I mean there's the fourth largest economy in the world and we contribute between 2 and 3% to the country's GDP.

And the fact is that it's about a 6.6 lakh crore ecosystem.

25% relies on CNG, piped gas, that is, or electric.

But 75% of all the restaurants and hotels in the country rely purely on LPG as the primary form of cooking.

So it is obviously, you know, it is, it can become a huge crisis if not addressed immediately.

At this point in time we're seeing shortages across the country in tier one, in two cities.

Many restaurants and hotels are facing it.

Difficult to kind of, you know, keep to survive the weekend.

Many have also already moved to much smaller menus that rely on non LPG based cooking solutions.

That being said, we've also been receiving some good news.

Things are changing by the hour, by the minute.

Yesterday the union Minister for petroleum and gas, Mr.

Hardeepuri had said that the commercial supply of LPG will start again.

It's not started yet, but it appears that that's in the works.

And the second thing also we've been hearing is that a big, a big cargo ship carrying about 1.35 lakh cubic tons of gas have reached the Mumbai ports.

So there is some silver lining that we're seeing.

But at this point in time, if you take a snapshot in time, as of this morning, there is a major challenge being faced by a majority of the institutions that serve food.

And remember, this is a country that our industry feeds the nation.

So this is a, this is a challenge that hopefully will be contained.

We're hopeful seeing the action being taken over the past 24 hours.

At this point in time, it remains a, it remains a challenge.

Give us a sense of how much of the industry will be impacted.

I mean the smaller plants for instance, will find it hard to survive.

The larger companies still may be able to hold some kind of inventory in banks, although that's also dwindling.

The smaller one does not have a robust or sophisticated Vendor management system or ability to hold inventory costs.

So the smaller one is the one unfortunately that ends up taking the brunt of it and that's being taken into cognizance by the government and the authorities.

as a result also of the efforts that the NRA has done, which is the body that I represent, which is the largest representation of restaurants within the country, we've done, we've been proactive, we've been reaching out to the powers that be.

We've been going on media outlets such as yours to spread the word that this is actually an impending crisis.

This could be, if not addressed immediately, an existential crisis.

So keeping all of that in mind, unfortunately the smaller one will be affected the most.

If the delivery kitchen stop, the entire gig economy also gets affected.

So there is a lot at stake here, there's no doubt.

And that's why the government is taking extreme steps and know is acting fast.

The pace of work and the pace of action is, is actually very, very quick.

We just hope that the results start coming out faster.

The LPG starts going in and you know, and

obviously as you know, overarching thing to above all of that, we hope the war start stops.

If I can just jump in with a few operational questions here.

Do restaurants, broadly speaking across the country have access to any LPG at this point in time?

I know that, you know, the Minister said what he said yesterday about making some allocations, commercial LPG allocations available to the industry.

So we at the NRA have been speaking with the top leaders of the three large oil companies, right?

And they have all now as of yesterday, the mandate had not reached them.

But I think we spoke early in the morning and post that I think this information was released.

There is very limited supply in most cases.

Whatever was left over with the vendors, the distribution vendors is that's what's remaining in most in my system.

we're in many cities around the country, we're been, we're not having access to any fresh supplies at the moment.

Whatever we have is stock that we already had and that probably will not last the weekend.

So yes, there is a definite dearth of availability currently.