4 min readPuneMar 19, 2026 10:35 PM IST
When Baner resident Anupama Singh tried to plan a welcome party for a newly-wed bride in her residential society this upcoming Sunday, all she met with was disappointment. With commercial LPG supply restricted in the country due to the conflict in West Asia caused by Israel-US strikes on Iran, many catering services in Pune are having to turn down willing customers, even if they are willing to pay extra.
“I tried to call small, medium, big, all types of caterers. I even told them that if they need any help we can do that. But they are saying ‘gas hi nahi hai’. They are not encouraged by any transportation help. Paying more is also not helping,” she said.
The owner of a food cart in Khadki that also does catering jobs, said that he has had to refuse multiple orders. “It is a very bad situation. If there are no cylinders how can I take catering orders? I got a cylinder around 15 days ago. My cart is also completely shut and I have refused 8 catering orders. I can’t even feed 20 people if there are no cylinders.” Four of his workers have returned to their villages as the cart is shut currently due to the lack of cylinders.
Singh said, “These caterers do a function in our society every three weeks or once a month for sure. They will never refuse our orders. But they clearly said now that they just can’t do it. One of my parties was for 20 people and another one I wanted to book was for 45. But even at these numbers they are unable to fulfill,” she added.
Suresh Mali, President of Pune District Catering Association, told The Indian Express, “Khup bhayankar paristiti aahe (It is a horrible situation). We are not able to fulfill orders and not a single cylinder is available. Almost everyone has stopped bookings, and even current bookings are not being taken. We have a total of 12,000 caterer members.”
“There have been fights with customers as well. They are saying that we need our booking fulfilled, we don’t need anything else. I have personally held back 27 of my orders. A minimum of three cylinders is needed for any catering service. Induction cookers are also not available. Even if someone has induction cookers, how many induction cookers can you use on 64 KV? You cannot load it with 30 induction cookers,” he added.
Some big caterers still have stock left, but are running out soon. Jitendra Chaudhary of Kalu Maharaj Caterers said that they had cylinder stock left for their next two bookings only. “We said no to two bookings already and we are not taking any future bookings. We will have the last event on 21 March, after that we will have to shutter. We have at least 8-10 bookings and we have told them that if the LPG issue is resolved only then we will be able to
fulfil your order. More than 20 are waiting.”
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Chaudhary says he is more concerned about his workers, 200-300 of whom are employed by him for every event. “The loss is not mine, it is the workers. If they sit at home, it is a big loss for them. It does not really matter if we get more or less orders, we are not concerned about that currently. But the workers earn 15,000 to 25,000 every month. What will they do?” With no end to the crisis in sight, the catering workers stare at an uncertain future.
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