HOW TO SURVIVE IF THERE IS A SHORTAGE OF LPG IN YOUR COUNTRY.

Two  days post the Holi festival, we faced a major operational challenge at Raja Bhojnalaya in Raipur struggling to find LPG. There was a severe shortage across the city; the supply was extremely low compared to the high demand from local businesses. Fortunately, before the Holi celebrations even began, we had already purchased two extra LPG cylinders. We made this proactive decision because we anticipated that the festival might make it difficult to secure a fresh supply. As it turned out, our intuition was exactly right. Because of the holiday, the gas offices were not opened, and immediately following the festival, the shortage hit the market hard, making it difficult for even the best vegetarian restaurant in Raipur to maintain its daily routine.

In our restaurant, which many locals consider the best place to eat in Raipur, require at least one LPG cylinder every single day to keep up with customer orders. Consequently, after only two days of the shortage, we began facing extreme difficulty. We had to find a creative solution quickly to stay open. The first thing we did was ask our neighbors if they had any extra LPG and if they were willing to sell it to us. When we asked them, they agreed to help, but since they were selling in black, they asked for 200 rupees more on each cylinder. Through this quick thinking, we managed to arrange two more LPG cylinders for Raja Bhojnalaya in Raipur.

However, we knew we could not survive more than two or three days relying on favors. We started to use all our personal contacts and professional relations, even calling various offices to see if anyone was willing to sell us LPG, even at black market prices. By doing this, we arranged another four to five cylinders. But we realized this was not the best way to survive; the cost was constantly increasing, and it simply was not sustainable for the best vegetarian restaurant in Raipur.

We decided we needed a permanent, long-term solution for our kitchen. We made the choice to build a traditional Bhatti (furnace), creating two to three Bhattis within our restaurant premises. Now, at Raja Bhojnalaya in Raipur, we use the Bhatti to make the base of all our sabzis, such as slow-cooked gravies and sauces. We also use it to steam large quantities of rice and handle all the heavy cooking tasks that require a lot of time and gas.

Even as the best place to eat in Raipur, we still use a hybrid system. Side by side with the furnace, we still use LPG for precision tasks like frying, tempering (tadka), and making fresh, hot chapatis for our guests. We handle it this way because the Bhatti has certain disadvantages: they take a long time to heat up, they create a lot of smoke, you cannot simply turn them off like a gas knob, and they require a lot of coal, which is actually more costly than LPG. Yet, this strategic move ensures that we never have to stop service during a crisis. By balancing the furnace and gas, we have secured the future of the best place to eat in Raipur regardless of fuel shortages, maintaining our status as the best vegetarian restaurant in Raipur.