Iran war: Bengaluru restaurants threaten city-wide shutdown today

The association’s letter said, “Since the hotel industry falls under essential service, the common people, senior citizens, students, medical professionals and others who depend on hotels for their daily meals will face hardships. Along with this, our hotel industry will have to face a crisis until gas supply resumes and normalcy is restored. Oil companies had informed us that there would be no disruption in gas supply for up to 70 days. However, the sudden suspension of supply has caused a major blow to the hotel industry. Therefore, we expect the concerned Union Secretaries to immediately take suitable measures in this regard and resume commercial gas supply to support the hotel industry. If gas supply is not restored, hotels will go on strike from tomorrow (March 10).”

“We do not have an intention to close but if the supply in Bengaluru doesn’t restart tomorrow, we will have no choice but to close our operations. It will be a loss for us as there is cascading affects on our business too,” PC Rao said.

However, The Indian Express spoke to some of the local restaurant owners who said that they are not shutting down but agreed that it is becoming tought to run operations. “There is a scarcity of commercial cylinders and it is now being sold for up to Rs 2,500 in the black market. But the billing is done for Rs 1,958. Even if someone is ready to pay Rs 2,500, at times we are unable to get cylinders,” Diwakar R, a restaurant owner, told The Indian Express.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said the Centre’s decision to hike LPG cylinder prices — by Rs 115 for commercial use and Rs 60 for domestic use — is excessive. Responding to a media question, he said that the concern over cylinder supply is a separate issue, while the LPG price hike is an entirely different matter.