Billing for your hardware and paint shop in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Cement by the bag, pipe by the metre and paint by the litre, and the contractor's account for the whole job.
Heavy goods and the sea road
Heavy goods are the ones the sea road makes most expensive.
- Port Blair has the Haddo, Wharf and Chatham harbours for ships to the mainland, about 1,190 km from Chennai and 1,255 km from Kolkata. Bags and rods that are not made on the islands are heavy to move that far.
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Tools for a counter that sells by the bag, the metre, the kilo and the litre
Credit book (khata)
The contractor's island site on a page of its own, each lot dated as it goes aboard.
GST bills
The firm's GST bill for rods that cross on a hired boat, with the tax on each line, is ready on the phone before the boat leaves the jetty.
Low stock warnings
The cement and the common rod sizes carry warnings, so you hear that they are low while an order can still sail.
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A hundred sizes, a contractor on credit and a tin of the wrong shade
A bag of cement waits for a berth
Cement, rods and pipe come by ship, and a ship has to wait for a berth. The contractor who has laid his foundation and is waiting for the rods does not wait quietly. He asks how many you have, and your answer is a walk to the godown with a torch, and a guess at what the ship carries. The ship does not wait for the contractor's schedule, and neither does the rain.
The contractor whose site is on another island
A contractor whose site is across the water buys here and sends the goods over on a boat. He takes materials in a few big lots and pays after the owner pays him. Each lot is a line on a slip, and by the time the last one goes aboard nobody holds a total. The owner pays when the roof is on, and the shop carries the account until then.
One hinge, three screws and a bag of cement in the same visit
A household buys a bag of cement and, in the same visit, a hinge, three screws and a metre of wire. The big goods are counted in bags and the small ones in pieces, and the small ones are the ones that leave the shelf without anyone writing them down.
From the bag at the godown to the site account
A rod, a bag and a length of pipe, counted before the berth is free
Each size of rod, each bag of cement and each length of pipe is an item with its own count. When the contractor asks how many rods you have, the answer is on the phone, and the list tells you which to ask for first before the berth is free. A shop that can answer in a sentence earns the next order.
The foreman on the other island ticks the lots against the bill
Each lot's bill goes to the contractor's phone with its date, and he shows it to his foreman on the other island, who ticks it against what comes off the boat. A shortfall is found at the landing on the day it happens and not on the roof a month later.
The small things counted as carefully as the big ones
On an island a missing hinge or wire is a wait for the next ship, not a walk to the next shop. Hinges, screws and wire are items with their own unit and count, so a screw shelf that seemed full is seen to be low in time.
Questions island hardware and paint shop owners ask
A contractor hires a boat for his cement before the berth date. How do I keep the boat's lot apart?
Bill the boat's lot to his page on the day it goes. The count comes down by that lot, and the bags waiting for the berth stay a number of their own.
The foreman on the other island says one lot came short. What do I show him?
Send each lot's bill to the foreman's WhatsApp when the boat leaves. On the island he reads the line against what came off the boat. The short lot is the line with the difference, and the site's page has the day it left.
A contractor takes a load by hired boat and the helper who loads it is also at the counter. How do I make sure the bill matches the load?
Pick each item with its quantity as it is carried out. The helper on the jetty reads the bill on the phone against the boat's tally before it leaves, and the count of each item goes down at the same moment.
Sand and aggregate come over by barge and a contractor wants them by the load. Can the load be the unit?
Yes. Make the load the unit of the item, and note each barge you take in against the supplier, so a barge that comes short shows as a gap against the order. The loads in the yard are on your phone, and you tell the contractor how many there are before he books the boat.
Materials from the mainland and the sand that cannot be dug
The Public Works Department said there was an acute shortage of construction materials in the islands, so aggregates were to be brought from the mainland for the Dhanikhari Dam work. When even a public project has to import aggregates, a private builder's order is not an easy one to place.
The state BJP asked the administration to lift the ban on sand collection, saying people pay heavily for sand and many cannot complete their construction work. A building that stalls for want of sand is a customer who comes back for the cement months late.