Panic over ‘LPG shortage’ in Delhi spurs migrant workers to return to home towns

As panic spreads over reports of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) shortage, migrant workers in the city earning a living as domestic help and street vendors have begun returning to their home towns. Those remaining are torn between leaving and “waiting for normalcy to return”.

Panic persists despite the Delhi government and oil companies assuring residents that there is no shortage of LPG.

Zareena Khatun, 43, a migrant from Bihar who works as a domestic help in south-west Delhi’s Palam Colony, had decided not to cook for her six-member family on Id as their LPG cylinder ran out, but a gas agency owner helped them out. “He came with an LPG cylinder in the evening on a bicycle instead of his usual truck and said it has only 10 kg of gas. I am not sure it will last even a month,” she said.