At Golden Temple’s langar, enough cooking gas supplies
Oil marketing companies to hold a stocktaking meeting today
The langar hall at the Golden Temple, widely regarded as the world’s largest community kitchen, is receiving an uninterrupted supply of both Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) refills and piped Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
General manager at the shrine Bhagwant Singh Dhangera today said Sri Guru Ramdas Ji Langar Hall currently had 115 LPG refills in the inventory as against a sanctioned strength of 700 LPG connections. Another lot of 100 refills will arrive on Friday.
“Officials of three oil marketing companies — Hindustan Petroleum, Indane and Bharat Gas — have sought an appointment for a meeting tomorrow. They have not expressed any supply concerns so far. The situation will get clearer after the meeting,” Dhangera said.
The principal source of cooking fuel at the langar hall at the Golden Temple is the CNG supplied through a direct pipeline connected to the kitchen. According to Dhangera, around 1,300 units of CNG are consumed every 24 hours, along with roughly 30 LPG refills.
Langar at Golden Temple, Amritsar. IStock
The langar hall serves 80,000 to 90,000 devotees daily, with the number crossing one lakh on weekends, he said.
The Golden Temple community kitchen is globally known for serving free meals to visitors regardless of religion, caste, gender or social status.
The Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation has been supplying CNG through an underground pipeline that became operational in 2019 after a 4.5-km stretch of pipeline was laid specifically for the langar hall. The shift phased out the use of wood as a cooking fuel and significantly reduced dependence on LPG, helping curb emissions. Before 2019, the langar kitchen used about 100 LPG cylinders and 50-60 quintals of wood daily to prepare meals for around 60,000 people. The number of LPG cylinders would rise to about 125 during festivals and weekends.
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