Rent, Food, or Gas: The Impossible Math Driving Workers Out of Delhi

Soaring LPG prices are quietly hollowing out Delhi's working-class industrial neighbourhoods. For daily-wage workers like Avdesh, a single gas cylinder now costs more than half a month's earnings and on the black market, prices have crossed ₹4,000, up from ₹1,000. Caught between fuel costs, rent, and food, families are making impossible trade-offs. Many have already sent dependents back to their home states. Others are reverting to firewood chulhas but even that isn't affordable anymore. Across Narela, Bawana, Okhla, entire communities are thinning out. With the uncertainty over when the Iran war will end, the energy shock is only expected to get worse.