Shabnam, 30, a resident of Vishwanath Puri JJ Cluster, part of Bhalswa Dairy, one of the largest slum settlements in Delhi, felt heavy when her twelve-year-old son asked why vegetable curry — a staple — was missing from his dinner plate Saturday.
“He asked me where the vegetables were, I told him I’ll make it for lunch tomorrow. Cooking it takes a lot of time and fuel, as it needs to be properly cooked,” she says, sitting beside her small 5-kg rusted gas cylinder, which she managed to refill with just one kilo of LPG by paying Rs 300, the day before, thrice the amount that she usually pays.
As the escalating conflict in West Asia and the subsequent blocking of Strait of Hormuz–a key transit point for oil and gas—triggered an LPG shortage across the country, slum dwellers in Delhi are forced to navigate skyrocketing black-market prices to refill their cylinders, often burning a hole in their pockets.
Many households in the cluster do not have an LPG card and have been sourcing gas from the black market even before the war broke out. Now, however, rates have risen sharply, residents of the clusters complain. An LPG card, also known as a Domestic Gas Consumer Card, is a unique identification document issued by distributors for registered users, and is required to book cylinders.
Shabnam, originally from Arrah, Bihar, was born and brought up in Delhi. Her settlement, according to the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) website, is one of three in Bhalswa Dairy that house thousands of migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, together forming one of the largest JJ clusters in the Capital. Her husband works at a garment factory and earns Rs 10,000 a month, of which Rs 3,000 goes towards rent for their one-room house, home to a family of five including three children.
With little room for financial flexibility, she worries about the uncertainty of when to queue up to refill her cylinders. “Earlier we used to fill up to 5 kg, but last time we only got 1 kg as it was expensive. It will either get over by morning tomorrow or by night. This is not like our village where we can burn wood,” she says, adding, “paet ke liye bharwana toh padega hi, ab chahe 300 ho kya 500 ka, par ab hamara hosla toot raha hai, samaan bandhd kar wapas gaon na jaana padhe (We have to fill our stomachs after all, whether it costs Rs 300 or Rs 500. But now our resolve is weakening. We might have to pack our belongings and go back).”
Shabnam’s is one of many households that have altered their diets to cut down on gas usage while paying inflated rates to refill their cylinders.
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Just across from her house, lives Shashikala Suryaprakash, 36, a resident of the cluster for the past 22 years, who also got her cylinder filled for a rate of Rs 250 per kg. “I asked the shopkeeper, he said that the supply has become costly so the prices will rise. I did not want to question him more since everyone was getting it at the same price,” she says. As a result, she has stopped making rotis as frequently, switching to rice as her staple. “My husband yesterday brought meat and we ate along with rice, we need to save fuel, what if the prices rise more,” she adds.
For Diljahan, 22, the trouble is of a different kind. Despite having an LPG card in her mother’s name, she has not been able to refill her cylinder, which ran out two days ago. “My father has been trying to book for the last two days, but the booking is not being accepted. He might go to the agency tomorrow as the current one will also get over soon,” she says.
Adding to their frustration, people manning small cylinder-refilling centres in the locality are charging exorbitant prices, say local residents. On Saturday evening, many in the locality, carrying cylinders of varied sizes were seen frequenting these shops.
“Cylinder bhar jaayega yahan?,(Can we refill our cylinders here)” while one asks, the other takes out a Rs 500 note for a kilo of gas at another shop.
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“If the situation continues like this, how will we be able to buy it anymore? We will have to go home,” says Mahender, 37, from Azamgarh in UP, a resident of the slum since 2007 who works at the nearby Azadpur Mandi.
His neighbour soon quips, “Gaon main bhi lambi line hai (There are long queues in the village as well).”
