After nearly two days of rumours about curtailed LPG availability caused confusion and long queues at gas agencies, supply in Lucknow began to stabilise slowly on Friday.
Officials and agency representatives said fresh stock has started arriving at local distribution centres, helping restore household supplies, but commercial users—hotels, restaurants, and catering businesses—remain under pressure.
Several gas agency owners in various parts of the city told HT the crisis was triggered by a combination of panic bookings and technical issues with the LPG booking server. Usually, Lucknow records about 8,000 to 10,000 bookings per day. However, after reports of shortages surfaced, daily bookings surged to 25,000-30,000, causing the booking server to crash. This led to large crowds at agencies as consumers rushed to secure cylinders directly, compounding confusion.
Agency owners told Hindustan Times that had the online booking system remained functional, the majority of consumers would have booked cylinders digitally, reducing the rush to physical agencies.
“The system was designed to manage daily demand efficiently, but the panic caused a manifold increase in bookings. As a result, the software failed and many consumers had to visit agencies in person,” said an agency official.
In some cases, to expedite distribution, the mandatory One-Time Password (OTP) verification at the time of delivery was temporarily relaxed to clear the backlog of pending orders.
While household supplies have started improving, commercial users in the city and across Uttar Pradesh are still feeling the impact. Hotels, restaurants, and catering businesses, which rely heavily on commercial LPG cylinders, have been forced to find alternative fuel sources. Sanjay Bhandari, executive director and state head of the Indian Oil Corporation in Lucknow, said oil companies have redirected supply toward domestic consumers to ensure household LPG remains uninterrupted.
“Gas agencies have been instructed to focus primarily on household cylinders to ensure the common man is not affected,” Bhandari said.
Dinesh Sharma, head of the restaurant cell of Uttar Pradesh Adarsh Vyapar Mandal, said, “More than 50% of hotels, restaurants, and roadside eateries that depend heavily on commercial cylinders for daily operations have converted to coal-based stoves or induction cooktops. We are also preparing fewer sweets and dishes that require minimal energy for cooking. It’s a question of survival,” he said.
Vijay Kumar, president of the UP Tent and Catering Association, said many caterers have already started scaling back services.
“During the wedding season, we are forced to fall back on wood, coal, cow dung cakes, and induction stoves. Commercial LPG supply is critical for our operations,” he added.
According to Jagdish Raj, president of the All India LPG Distribution Federation (UP Chapter), the hospitality industry in the state has a massive daily requirement of LPG.
“The LPG supply has stabilised today after two days of turbulence. In Lucknow alone, there are about 5,000 food outlets and nearly 2,000 hotels, restaurants, dhabas, and cloud kitchens. Together they consume around 14,000-15,000 commercial cylinders every day. Across Uttar Pradesh, daily consumption is nearly 1.10 lakh commercial cylinders,” he said.
. “Today, supplies have improved, and we hope to achieve around 20% of commercial cylinder delivery within the next few days. This would be a significant step towards normalising gas supply,” Raj added.
Additional district magistrate (civil supplies)Jyoti Gautam said, “For households, the situation is gradually stabilising as agencies receive fresh consignments. Consumers are being advised to use the Indian Oil Corporation mobile application for bookings, as it is functioning normally and can prevent the crowding previously witnessed at physical agencies.”
The city has around 118 LPG agencies operated by different oil companies. She said that authorities are conducting regular checks of cylinder stocks in agency godowns to clear the backlog of pending bookings.
Additionally, officials have been urged to crack down on the commercial use of domestic LPG cylinders by hotels, restaurants and roadside vendors, and to take strict action against gas theft and illegal refilling with the support of the police.