The bustling food streets that cater to thousands of IT employees in Cyberabad fell unusually silent on Friday morning as the deepening shortage of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) forced several popular roadside eateries to halt operations across Madhapur and Gachibowli.
Stalls along the ITC Kohenur stretch in Madhapur and parts of the busy DLF Road, normally packed with office-goers grabbing quick breakfasts, late-night meals and cups of tea, were either shut or operating with severely limited menus after vendors ran out of LPG cylinders. The disruption has hit a vibrant network of small food stalls that serve everything from fusion dosas and Maggi varieties to rice meals, curries and Indo-Chinese dishes, forming a crucial part of the area’s late-night food culture.
Among those struggling to stay open is the widely known roadside eatery run by Dasari Sai Kumari, popularly called Kumari Aunty, whose stall attracts long queues of customers looking for hearty rice meals with a range of curries. By Friday afternoon, she said she was left with only half a cylinder, barely enough to sustain operations for another meal.
On a typical day, her kitchen uses two LPG cylinders to prepare large quantities of food, including nearly 100 kilograms of chicken dishes, around ten varieties of rice and several vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries such as rajma and fish preparations. With supplies running thin, she said Friday’s lunch service may be among the last until fresh cylinders arrive.
