Within days of the war in Iran, panic spread across India’s cooking-gas system. Millions rushed to book LPG refills. Restaurants shut kitchens. A temple in Delhi halted its community meals. The government invoked emergency powers and warned hoarders they could face seven years in jail. But the panic revealed a deeper question.

India now has 33 crore households cooking on LPG — one of the largest cooking-gas networks in the world. Yet the country’s strategic underground reserves amount to less than two days of national demand.

And interestingly, in last year’s budget documents, the government told Parliament it had no plans to build any new LPG storage caverns. Almost no one noticed that line until now.

How did the world’s most ambitious clean-cooking programme end up with a buffer this thin?

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