Interestingly, there is a supply deficit of about 20 per cent in terms of heating appliances almost across the entire region, and this has also lead to rise in their prices due to sudden spurt in demand owing to continued cold spell across north, more so during the course of last 10 days.

The organised heating appliances’ segment is likely to cross Rs 150 crore this season from over Rs 80 crore in the last season, as per the estimates by the industry body.

“Apart from the shortfall in supply of heating gadgets, the cost of branded products across varied makes has also spiked by about 15 per cent further adding to the woes of people seeking for heating options during one of the most severe winter seasons in recent memory,” said DS Rawat, Secretary General, Assocham in a statement.

The demand for heating appliances might swell further with weather experts claiming that February and March will witness further dip in the temperature. About 18 to 20 lakh pieces of room heaters across varied categories are likely to be sold out by end of the season, according to the analysis.

During the course of last fortnight (December 25-January 3) Assocham representatives interacted with about 150 manufacturers, sales and marketing managers at electrical appliances’ stores and shopkeepers in Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Delhi-NCR, Gurgaon, Jaipur, Jammu, Kanpur, Lucknow, Patna and Srinagar to ascertain the market of heating appliance considering the decline in temperatures and persisting cold wave.

Almost all the electronic appliances’ manufacturers said they had scaled up production of heating appliances by about 25 per cent over last year but still the demand surpassed their estimates due to sharp decrease in temperatures.

Most of the manufacturers said that due to input price inflation they had increased the prices of these appliances by nearly 15-20 per cent this season.

The branded heating appliances though costly but are selling like hot cakes, said the electronics’ shopkeepers. The majority of shopkeepers and electrical goods’ dealers at prominent Lajpat Rai market, Bhagirath Palace and Daryaganj in Delhi said they have literally ran out of stock in terms of heating appliances as there is no supply from behind.

Interestingly, many of these said they had faced a similar sort of a situation last year as well and thus had advised the manufacturing companies to scale up their production and increase the supply of the heating appliances in wake of soaring demand.