Commercial cooking gas prices to go up across country

On Thursday, oil marketing companies increased the price of a 19-kilogramme commercial LGP cylinder by ₹111. In Delhi, the retail price now stands at ₹1,691.50, up from ₹1,580.50. The move directly impacts one of the food service industry’s most significant operational expenses, hotel and restaurant owners said.

A nationwide price hike for commercial cooking gas announced on Thursday is set to squeeze restaurants and hotels in Delhi, with owners warning of tighter profit margins and difficult choices about passing costs to customers.

On Thursday, oil marketing companies increased the price of a 19-kilogramme commercial LGP cylinder by ₹111 (REUTERS)

On Thursday, oil marketing companies increased the price of a 19-kilogramme commercial LGP cylinder by ₹111. In Delhi, the retail price now stands at ₹1,691.50, up from ₹1,580.50. The move directly impacts one of the food service industry’s most significant operational expenses, hotel and restaurant owners said.

Industry representatives said the timing is particularly challenging, coming at the start of the year when annual menu prices are typically fixed.

“Bigger restaurants cannot revise prices whenever they want,” said Varun Khera, a National Restaurant Association of India member and owner of multiple outlets in NCR including The Imperial Spice in Connaught Place. “The initial loss from a fluctuation like this has to be incurred by the business itself.”

The increase adds immediate pressure, especially for medium-sized establishments, restaurant owners alleged.

The owner of a North Indian restaurant in Malviya Nagar, who asked not to be identified, explained the math: an outlet using four cylinders monthly faces an added ₹444 expense just for gas. “We already run on tight margins… That is money we cannot easily pass on to customers without risking footfall,” the restaurant owner said.

Similar concerns seemed to persist among even well-known brands. A manager at a Pind Balluchi branch in Lajpat Nagar noted that even a slight price increase could drive customers to cheaper alternatives. “We have a more or less fixed range of customers who know our prices,” he said.

Slightly smaller outlets are set to be worst-hit. Rakesh Mondal, the owner of a newly set-up small restaurant in Amar colony, said that as a new business, they are set to be hit harder as margins are already razor-thin in a business’s early stages.

“A ₹111 increase per cylinder may seem small, but for smaller businesses like us, it can mean another quarter of no significant profits,” he stated, highlighting the compounded pressure of consistent quality and staff salaries.