Jamshedpur: Those associated with restaurant business in Steel City are now staring at bigger losses during Baisakhi and Polia Boishak (Bengali New Year’s) due to LPG crunch arising out of the West Asia crisis.Sardar Baldev, who runs a chain of restaurants in the city and on NH-18 said, “The customer footfall during Poila Boishak and Baisakhi multiplies by almost three times. To lure more customers during these celebration times, we organize live music, bhangra, DJ along with a wide range of multi-cuisine buffets. But this year, due to the LPG crunch, we have been running our establishments for the past one month with a curtailed menu card, which offers only limited food items. Due to this the footfall has trickled down to bare minimum. At all my restaurants, 90% of our starters are off the menu card.”Sagar, a manager of a star-rated hotel in the city, said, “Our restaurant this year has nothing special to offer. The guest footfall has decreased by more than 60%. Due to a sharp dip in income, we had to discontinue services of one-fourth of cooking and supporting staff.”Meanwhile, smaller eating joints at ‘Khao Galis’ are also battling for survival. Sonu, a street food stall owner in Sakchi, said, “Our customers are from lower and mid-economic segments, and if we raise the price of our food items by 20%, the sale will decrease by more than 70%, which will mean total loss for us. So many of the vendors have stopped opening shops in ‘Khao Galis’ as they can hardly earn profits now.”
