With panic booking of gas cylinders by consumers being reported from some parts of the country, the oil marketing companies have introduced several restrictions to offload some pressure on the gas supply chain and ensure that consumers don’t resort to hoarding of cylinders.
With the West Asia war entering its ninth day, some consumers had started booking gas cylinders in a bid to hoard them anticipating a shortage in domestic gas supply. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces has exposed the bigger near-term risk that lies in the LPG and LNG supplies to India from the Middle East, especially from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
A report prepared by the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) states that India imported USD 13.9 bn worth of LPG from West Asia in 2025, representing 46.9% of its LPG imports. India is one of the world’s largest LPG importers and relies heavily on Middle Eastern supply and experts say a prolonged closure of the Strait could push up replacement costs and create tighter regional balances, especially if multiple Asian buyers compete for limited alternative cargoes.
With the crisis set to enter its ninth day on Sunday, Indian oil companies have laid out several restrictions for the gas cylinder distributors and the consumers to ensure that there is no panic booking of gas cylinders henceforth.
While the regional offices of the oil marketing companies (OMCs) in some parts of the country like West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Telangana had already introduced a lock-in period of about 21 days between two consecutive gas cylinder bookings this week, the OMCs have now stated a lock-in period of 25 days will be in place for refilling a gas cylinder up from 15 days that prevailed in pre-war times.
Further, a customer can now book only 15 gas cylinders in a year and the OMCs have directed that the OTP-rule will be strictly implemented at the time of delivery.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, P.N. Seth, executive president, All India LPG Distributors Federation said that in wartime, consumers tend to panic thinking that they might not get gas supply in future and tend to start hoarding gas cylinders.
“Such reports of panic booking were flowing in from some parts of the country but from Saturday onwards, four restrictions have been put in place by OMCs to ensure that consumers don’t resort to panic booking and domestic gas consumption happens as per the requirement of consumers,” he said.
Seth said that the first restriction is that the gas cylinder booking period has been extended from 15 to 25 days (unlike 21 days in Kolkata and Telangana etc). “Now, no consumer will be able to book a gas cylinder within 25 days. He or she can only book a gas cylinder after a gap of 25 days between the current and prior booking. Moreover, a domestic consumer can now book a total of only 15 gas cylinders in a financial year,” he said.
Further, in case a customer wants to book more than 15 cylinders in a year, then he or she has to login through the digital portal of the concerned oil company.
Seth added that all the bookings are now needed to be done via the existing digital systems of the OMCs including the IVRS/WhatsApp booking/missed call booking.
The fourth change is that the distributors have now been asked to ensure that gas cylinder delivery is done only after the customer provides the OTP generated at the time of the booking.
“The cylinder delivery is required to be done only if the consumer provides the OTP which is generated at the time of the booking. However, this rule was not being strictly implemented. Several times, when a deliveryman goes to deliver a cylinder, the customer tends to claim that the person who booked the cylinder is not at home or is unavailable. In such cases, cylinders used to be delivered but now it has been made essential for the distributors to implement this rule strictly,” he said.
The above measures are aimed at ensuring that genuine customers get gas cylinder supply and don’t go in panic booking mode, he said.
The government has also put curbs to the supply of cooking gas for commercial consumers in a bid to prioritise the domestic consumer.
Sparingly using its emergency powers, the centre had on March 6 directed oil refineries to ramp up LPG production in a bid to increase cooking gas production against potential supply disruption due to the West Asia crisis.
The order issued under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, directed all oil refining companies operating in India to maximise production of LPG from propane and butane streams produced, recovered or fractionated or otherwise available with them, adding that these streams should be utilised in LPG production and supplied only to the three public sector OMCs, namely, Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL).
The order further directed all OMCs to ensure that LPG so procured is supplied or marketed solely to domestic LPG consumers, causing panic amongst the commercial consumers including restaurateurs and hoteliers in some parts of the country.
In fact, the Tamil Nadu Hotels Association asked the centre to withdraw its order stating that the decision could severely affect hotels and eateries.
However, government sources said that the petroleum ministry is firm that domestic consumers will get priority over commercial consumers who tend to make profits all year.
Further, the government is also sensitive about the pilferage of domestic gas cylinders for commercial supply.
“The restaurants and hotels tend to make profits during normal times. In times like these, the government has to ensure that the domestic consumer gets priority,” a source in the petroleum ministry told The Sunday Guardian.
Seth said that this move will ensure that the pilferage of gas cylinders meant for domestic use, will not happen for commercial usage.
“Prior to this restriction, some distributors used to sell 19 kg and 5kg FTL (free trade LPG) cylinders to commercial entities without any demand. Now this practice will be stopped as top priority will be given to the domestic consumers,” said an official.
Asked till when the existing LPG stocks will last, government sources did not specify the period but a senior LPG distributor told The Sunday Guardian that India has stocks that can last till about 25 days.
On this issue, government sources said that while the centre was “concerned about LPG supplies from the Middle East initially, it is now in a comfortable situation.”
The government has raised domestic LPG cylinder price by Rs 60 and the price of commercial cylinder by Rs 114.5 inviting a blistering attack from the opposition parties including the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress, etc.
RJD MP Manoj Jha said that the government was not concerned with public good and questioned what impact this price hike will have on families that earn merely Rs 3000-4000 per month.
Central government sources however said that over the past four years, domestic gas prices had been hiked only by Rs 110.
