It is 11:45 pm, and Sita Thappa, 35, has not finished her day yet. As she stands under an open sky, planes passing overhead every now and then, she still has to cook the first meal of the day.

Sita crouches over four bricks that have been balanced to make a makeshift chulha on the terrace of a seven-floor building in Batla House, Jamia Nagar. The city around her has gone quiet; most families have finished dinner and shut their doors, but she is still trying to prepare the only cooked meal her family will eat that day.

The flame is uneven and does not hold steady. It is fed by broken ply and scrap wood that she buys at Rs. 100 per kilo. Her three children, Suneel (4), Suhana (6), and Sushmita (9), sit close by, struggling to stay awake, their tired eyes waiting for the food. Cooking over an open fire is not permitted during the day in the building because of restrictions imposed by the landlords. And her family can no longer access LPG. “So we cook both lunch and dinner this one time,” she said, blowing into the fire.

Sita migrated here from Suraha in Nepal, over 1,100 km away, to find work in Delhi. She now cleans six homes each day, earning Rs. 1,200 per household per month, which sustains the family at a basic level but does not leave any room for the high fuel costs.

Her husband, Raju Thappa, is a watchman, or bahadur, the term commonly used for Nepali-origin workers in these roles. He is part of one of the many informal labour networks that keep the city running.

India hosts an estimated 3-4 million Nepali citizens who work across informal sectors, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and migration data from Nepal. Delhi alone, as unofficial estimates by labour groups suggest, has tens of thousands of Nepal-origin workers, concentrated in low-wage occupations such as domestic work and security services, where earnings are low and social protection missing.

Without Aadhaar-linked documentation, proof of local residence, or access to formal distributor networks, many such workers are excluded from schemes like Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, under which over 9.6 crore LPG connections have been issued nationally since 2016. So, for migrants like Sita, the promise of clean cooking energy exists only in policy documents and is not a lived reality.

Her family has not had a hot breakfast in over a month, and survives on leftover rotis given by the households where she works. “Sometimes the food gets spoilt in the heat,” she said, her voice trembling, “but we have to eat it.”

The strain in Sita’s life is not an isolated hardship but part of a wider system that is increasingly under stress.

Following the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20 per cent of global petroleum liquids transit daily according to the US Energy Information Administration, the LPG supply chains into South Asia have narrowed sharply, affecting countries that are structurally dependent on imports for household energy consumption. India, which imports around 60 per cent of its LPG requirements and routes close to 90 per cent of that through Hormuz, has experienced slowed cargo movement and supply bottlenecks that are not always visible as official shortfalls but acutely felt at the margins.

In Delhi, the shortage does not manifest as empty depots or public announcements of scarcity, but instead filters through price distortions, access barriers, and documentation requirements each of which disproportionately excludes migrant workers.

The capital hosts an estimated 2-3 million migrant workers, based on Census projections and Labour Ministry assessments, with a large proportion of them coming from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, States that together account for over 37 per cent of India’s inter-State migrant workforce according to the Census of India and the Ministry of Labour and Employment. For these workers, the Iran war meant LPG shifting from being an irregular resource to being effectively inaccessible.

***

At the Anand Vihar railway station in East Delhi, the consequences of this exclusion take a physical shape—constant movements, long waits, and departures.

Dilip Manji, 45, from Bangra village in Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, sits on the platform with his family of seven—wife Sanvi and their six children—having arrived at 10 that morning to buy tickets for a train that is scheduled to depart at 4:30 am the following morning, a wait that stretches across nearly an entire day and night under conditions of exhaustion and uncertainty.

Dilip has worked in Delhi since 1997 as a construction labourer, earning approximately Rs. 400 per day when work is available, although payments are often delayed, making survival dependent on irregular cash flows.

“We came early to get tickets,” he says, his face lined with fatigue and his lips dry, “but we still have to go by general class, and we don’t know if we will even get a seat.”

This is the first time in nearly three decades that Dilip is leaving Delhi within just six months of returning from his village after Holi. The reversal of his usual migration cycle underscores the severity of the present crisis. “We haven’t had breakfast for a week,” he said, his voice breaking under the weight of the admission, “my children will die of hunger if we stay here.”

Data suggests that Dilip’s experience is not an exception but part of a structural pattern. A 2020 report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that over 90 per cent of India’s workforce is informal, with migrant labour forming the most precarious segment, characterised by daily wages, absence of contracts, and lack of access to welfare portability.

During times of crisis, this vulnerability becomes even sharper. The official price of a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder in Delhi ranges between Rs. 900 and Rs. 1,000, while migrants without formal connections are forced into informal markets where small or chhotu cylinders are sold at Rs. 2,500- Rs. 4,000, translating to Rs. 400–Rs. 600 per kg, a rate that makes cooking unaffordable.

When the Iran crisis hit Indian markets, Dilip sold two empty five kg cylinders for Rs. 1,000 just to buy wood, a decision that effectively removed his last connection to LPG. “That was the only way,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead repeatedly, “otherwise how could we cook.”

On a general coach heading eastward, Rakesh Paswan, 40, from Asinpur village in Samastipur district of Bihar, grips a window seat that he cannot afford to lose, knowing that if he gets up even briefly, someone else may take it, forcing him to stand for the rest of the journey that stretches across hundreds of kilometres.

Paswan has lived in Delhi since 2002 and works on a farm in Ghazipur, earning Rs. 12,000 per month. For the past two weeks, he has been unable to cook in his rented accommodation because the landlord prohibits the use of makeshift mud stoves that can be used with wood or coal. “The owner won’t allow a chulha,” he said, adjusting his bag carefully as he spoke, “they would have thrown me out in a second and how would I then feed my family?”

When Dilip last managed to refill gas in March after multiple visits to a filling point, it cost him Rs. 450 per kilogram. “Even if they say Rs. 500, we have to accept,” he said, “because we are needy and they are not.”

Despite having stayed through the COVID-19 lockdown, a period that forced millions of migrants into crisis, Dilip is leaving this time for his village. Even during Covid, he said, staying back at least meant he could get food. “Back then we could cook,” he said, his voice tight, “now we cannot”.

Across India, internal migrants number over 45 crore, including short-term and circular migrants, according to NITI Aayog. While policy efforts such as the One Nation One Ration Card scheme have improved access to subsidised food grains, clean cooking energy remains tied to a fixed address, access to distributors, and documentation, which effectively excludes mobile populations.

In another train that is ready to depart, Mohit Kumar, 32, from Gonda in Uttar Pradesh, sits compressed on a berth designed for four that now holds seven, bodies overlapped, legs pressed into one another, and bags resting against heads in a dense arrangement that reflects the urgency of departure.

A tailor by profession working in Samaypur Badli and earning Rs. 12,000 per month, Mitun ran out of gas a week ago and has since been eating at eateries, until even that option became financially unsustainable. “Gas is Rs. 500 per kg,” he said, lowering his voice, “and they told us not to tell anyone”.

Kumar’s co-workers have already left the city; he stayed as long as he could before the situation became untenable. “Even during lockdown I stayed,” he said, “but then we could cook, now we can’t.”

***

The government, however, has steadily maintained since the Strait of Hormuz was closed that the LPG supply remains stable and sufficient.

On April 6, 2026, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas stated that over 18 crore LPG cylinders were delivered to households since March 1, with approximately 50 lakh cylinders delivered daily across the country, supported by a system in which 97 per cent of bookings are made online and nearly 90 per cent of deliveries are authenticated through OTP-based mechanisms designed to prevent diversion. Commercial LPG allocation has been increased to about 70 per cent of pre-crisis levels, and since March 23, around 6.75 lakh 5-kg cylinders have been sold in the free-trade category to enhance availability.

In a parallel measure, on April 7, 2026, the Petroleum Ministry ordered that the daily allocation of 5-kg free trade LPG cylinders for migrant labourers be doubled across all States beyond the earlier 20 per cent cap, with distribution based on average daily supply recorded between March 2 and March 3. It maintained that since March 23, about 6.75 lakh such cylinders had already been sold to strengthen availability to migrant populations who depend on the smaller, more affordable cylinders.

Public sector oil marketing companies have conducted over one lakh raids, seizing more than 52,000 cylinders and taking action against hoarding and black marketing.

The measures have not reached Sita. Every day is the same, constrained by forces beyond her control. The wood fire she cooks on is weak and unstable; sometimes the food is raw, and sometimes it gets burnt. But the family eats it because there is no alternative. Sita adjusts the pot and shields the flame from a sudden gust of wind. “I have to manage,” she said, her voice steady despite everything. It is past midnight when the meal is ready. She will leave again for work at 6 the next morning.

Arsalan Shamsi and Mohsin Mushtaq are freelance journalists based in New Delhi

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