Month: September 2025

In March 2024, my colleagues Shubham Kashyap, Aena Rawal and I were on the road to Dhampur again to resume the field work for our study: Forty Years’ Development Saga of Dhampur: Growth Dynamics and Regional Transformation of an Indian Small Town. While I was busy introspecting about how we will go about our work in Dhampur, I was also noticing everything passing by, the towns and villages, factories, and green fields lush with sugar cane, wheat and mustard crops. Also, the towns and villages we passed through had the string of familiar roadside shops and services that straddle between rural and urban life styles, ranging from fancy clothes and shoe stores, fruit and vegetable stalls, chemists, mobile phone repairs, barbers and beauty salons, construction materials, furniture, household goods, agricultural implements, sweet shops, tea shops, biryani joints, and restaurants also displaying pictures of fast food (burgers, momos and noodles) along with the usual Indian dishes on their boards. 

As we approached Gajraula town, I started noticing a few pizza places. When looked closely I found that none of these were popular pizza brands I was familiar with, such as: Domino’s, Pizza Express, Pizza Hut, La Pino’s, US Pizza, Chicago Pizza, Papa John’s, Oven Story and Slice of Italy. There were names like Pizza Slice, Pizza Nagari, ONO Pizza, Roms Pizza, etc. Going around in Dhampur town, we came across several more such as: Biggies Pizza, Pizza Uncle, Pizza Point, Pizza Universe, Friends’ Zone Pizza, Hunger Pizza, Delicious Pizza and Shambhu Pizza.

We preferred to have lunch in a restaurant while being out and about the town as we always had dinner at the Eurasia Palace hotel where we were staying. The numerous street food carts selling popular foods like Parathas, Biryani, Chhole Bhature, Momos and Burgers didn’t appeal to us. There were only two multi-cuisine restaurants in the town that could meet our expectation of hygiene, ambience and choice of dishes, namely the Indian Corner and Gulmohar. Hence, we often ended up in one of the pizza places for a change. To our surprise, we found that the pizza toppings were very similar to what we would find in pizzerias in Delhi and other large cities, and not drastically customised to suit more Indian small-town palate. Some of the larger pizza places also had home delivery services, such as Biggies Pizza, Pizza Uncle and The PizzaBite. The only difference was that none of these restaurants offered thin crust pizzas. However, the price of pizzas was about half the price of what one would pay in well-known pizza joints like Dominos in larger cities, which is understandable keeping in mind the local affordability levels.

Remembering my student days, when going out to eat always meant going to an Chinese restaurant, I wondered what would explain the penetration of pizzas into the Indian small towns and the countryside, as the only international cuisine that is so visible?

After trying out several pizza places and talking to some of the restaurant owners, I came to understand that there are a number of explanatory factors for the popularity of pizza places in a small town like Dhampur:

Pizza Joints Have Not Replaced the Conventional Food Outlets: As is the case in many smaller towns and cities in India, sweet shops also offering a range of savory delicacies continue to be the go-to places for take-aways in Dhampur as well. Khairati’s sweet shop located in Bhagat Singh Chauk is about two hundred years’ old and is the most popular of such sweet shops. Bhagat Singh Chauk in the center of the town also has many snack vendors, where people stop to take a bite while shopping in the market, or just go there for a quick snack. The most well-known of these is about hundred years’ old Jain Kachari Wala who specialises in selling Singhada (Water Chestnut), Lobia Beans and Moong dal Kachari (A slow cooked creamy paste) served with a chunk of butter, green chutney and sweet chutney. Virendra Saini, the third-generation owner of this business, opens this shop at 6 am and closes by mid-day. Food carts continue to serve this dish along with other snacks like Chaat, Samosa, Kachori and Aloo Tiki through the day. In addition, there are several well-known Samosa, Pakora and Kachori shops in the main bazaar street and at key points such as: near the railway station, bus terminal and Nagina Chauraha. But none of these joints offer dine-in facility for a relaxed eating out experience.

Increased Disposable Income: With economic development and more disposal incomes in hand, particularly in India’s urban areas, and also in the neighbouring rural areas, eating out has become the most prominent life style changes. Newer and more eating out options are coming to meet the preferences of the clientele of different income groups.

Impact of Internet and Media: The media and advertising have an undeniable role in promoting various kinds of cuisines that prominent social influencers in large cities prefer to eat. Easy access to internet and platforms like YouTube also makes it possible for young people in small towns and villages to learn more about these new kinds of cuisines.

Changing Aspirations of the Youth: Pizzas appear to be the new exotic food in India’s small towns. Pizza joints meet the aspirations of the younger generation, who think it is fashionable to eat in a fancy restaurant where they can chill out with friends and take pictures. These restaurants also provide a safe space to young men and women who can spend time together without social scrutiny.

Similarities Between Pizzas and Roti-Sabzi: Easy acceptance of its structure and taste, as in a way it is similar to the most widespread North Indian staple Roti-Sabzi, albeit with a bit of tomato sauce and cheese. And, you can make it spicier to match your taste by adding jalapeno toping and chili flakes. Pragmatism of eating it with hands with no fear of being frowned upon for not using unfamiliar cutlery like fork and knife has an additional appeal.

Finally, one can say that popularity of pizzas is one of the indicators of the widespread life style transformation taking place in an aspirational small town like Dhampur.

Note: All pictures are taken by Pushpa Pathak

Source: Author analysis of data from EIDB->SYSTEM ON INDIA’s Export Import, Ministry of Commerce https://tradestat.commerce.gov.in/ 2025-26 refers to the first quarter of the fiscal year, i.e., April 2025 to June 2025
Note that “Traditional West Asia” refers to three large sources, viz. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. Other Traditional includes USA, Brazil, Kuwait, Mexico, Nigeria and Oman. Together with Russia, they were the top ten sources in 2021-22, before the spurt in crude imports from Russia. Rest comprises other 31 countries from which there were imports under HSN code 27090000 for 2018-19 to 2021-22 and HSN 27090020 for 2022-23 to 2025-26.

Figure 1 shows how the source countries of India’s imports of petroleum crude has changed since 2018-19, with the rise in the share of Russia from 1% in 2018-19 to 35.1% (by value) in 2024-25 (35.8% by volume). However, over this period, there have actually been two transitions. 

The first transition, over 2018-19 to 2021-22 (admittedly, a CoVID-affected year), was when India stopped importing from first, Iran and then Venezuela. Their share of 17% in 2018-19, about 41 million tons out of a total of 226 million tons, was largely made up by stepping up the share from traditional sources. 

The second transition is the increase in imports from Russia, which goes from 4 million tons in 2021-22 to over 87 million tons in 2024-25. In this shift, the share of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and UAE reduced by 11 percentage points, but since the overall import went from 196 million tons to 244 million tons, their overall quantity remained about the same. However, for the other six countries, not only did their share drop by 18 percentage points, the quantity imported from them reduced by more than half, from over 60 million tons to under 30 million tons. The shares of other countries (‘Rest’) also declined, as did overall imports from them. However, imports from some countries, like Angola and South Korea, show an increase over 2021-22 to 2024-24. Some imports from Venezuela also seem to have resumed. Thus, the increase in imports from Russia has been accompanied by a decrease in imports from many countries, some of whom saw a drastic fall in their exports to India.

Figure 2 compares average unit values (total imports by value divided by imports by volume) of imports from Russia and other countries. Before 2021-22 (this Russia Ukraine war started in February 2022), Russian crude was priced at a premium, while post 2021-22, it was indeed priced at a discount. The discount was substantial in the two years, 2022-23 (14.1%) and 2023-24 (10.4%). This implies savings in the total crude import bill of about USD 5 billion a year or 3.1% and 3.9% respectively, given the counterfactual that Russian crude was substituted with crude at the average non-Russian price. However, if India were to shift to other suppliers, given its import volume, the global price might actually have risen, i.e. this is the claim that US wanted India to buy Russian crude to keep the oil market stable and prices in check. So, the value of savings may have been higher, but it would have been likely be under 1% of the total Indian import bill.