Billing for your hardware and paint shop in Arunachal Pradesh
Cement by the bag, rods by the kilo, paint by the litre, and the contractor's account on a page of its own.
Why a hardware counter in the hills sells in six units at once
The last hour of the load carried up on people's backs
When a bridge is down, the truck stops at the river and the cement is carried across and up the last hour on people's backs. You pay by the bag, and the count at the top is not always the count at the bottom. The mason says forty arrived, the carriers say forty-five, and you have no record of either.
Nails, bolts and hinges for a bamboo-and-timber house on stilts, bought by the handful
A family building a house on stilts comes for nails by the handful, bolts by the dozen, a few hinges and a hasp. Each is a small amount and each has its own rate. The shop weighs, counts and adds them aloud, and the bill for the whole house frame is a column of small sums that nobody checks.
A length of plastic sheet kept for the family up the slope
A father high on the slope sends word for a length of plastic sheet and says he will come when the path is dry. The next roll is a week away on the hill road, and a length kept for him is a length not sold to the man at the counter. Which length is whose is in your head.
From the first bag of cement to the last tin of the right orange
The bags counted at the foot and at the top of the carry
Count the bags into the stock at the river bank and again at the site, and write the carriers' bags against their names. The difference between the two is a number, and a bag that fell in the stream is a loss you can see, not a quarrel with the mason.
Each roofing length cut at the counter for the hill carry
Roofs here are steep, and a hill family wants long lengths, cut at the counter to what it can carry up. Add each length as an item with its rate, and the cut is a line on the bill.
A paint tinted for a festival date, written down with the day it must be ready
A house owner wants the front wall done before the festival, and his tin must be ready by Thursday. Put his name, the tin size and the Thursday on a page. He collects on the day you promised, and the page shows he took it.
Tools for a godown of bags, rods, pipes and tins
Bills on your phone
A bill with three lengths of roofing sheet, a charge for each cut and a tin of the shade the owner picked.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the mason with the load promised on the day the road was shut, so he asks the page and not you.
Godown stock
The offcuts at the back counted apart from the full sheets in front, so the pile has a number.
Bags, sites and tin sizes: what hardware owners here ask
Some bags fell in the stream on the way over. What do I put on his bill?
Put on his bill only the bags that reached him. The bags that fell in the water are not his, and you see them as the gap between what left your godown and what he was billed.
A family buys the fixings of its stilt house frame in stages. Can each stage be seen?
Each stage of the frame has its own fixings: the nails first, the bolts when the posts are up, the hasps for the doors last. Bill each stage's fixings when the family comes for them, with the day, and the stage is on the bill.
My order for tin sheets and nails goes to a trader in the plains before the rains close the road. How do I send it and note what comes?
Write the order to the trader with each sheet length and each nail you need, and send it from the phone. When the load reaches you, note what arrived against that order, and the stock of each length goes up by what you noted.
The carriers who take the cement up the last hour are paid by the bag. Can I keep their bags apart?
Yes. Write the bags against each carrier's name on a page, with the day. At the week's end the page shows how many bags each carried, and the payment is read from it.
A house owner comes back a week later for more roofing sheets. Can I read both visits together?
Yes. Both bills sit on the owner's page under his name, each with its date. Open the page and read the sheets he took on the first visit and on the second, and tell him what the house has had from you so far.
A gap of Rs 35 at Banderdewa and the June 2026 rains
In September 2016 the All Arunachal Contractor's Welfare Association said a bag of cement cost Rs 345 on the Assam side of Banderdewa but Rs 380 on the Arunachal side. A contractor who knows a rate across the border looks sharply at yours, and the shop that can show him the rate on a bill, bag by bag, argues less. The cement that crosses a border on a truck and the cement that was bought in the next district for a lower rate may sit at the same shelf, and the rate on each bill should be one that can be read again.
Heavy monsoon rains in late June 2026 damaged roads and bridges across at least 12 Arunachal districts, leaving eight major road stretches in East Siang blocked. A godown with a week of cement and paint inside it is worth more in such weeks than the same godown a month earlier, and its owner needs to know what it holds.