Billing for your supermarket in Arunachal Pradesh
A hostel's monthly basket, gourds by the kilo and packets by the piece, billed and counted.
Why a small-town supermarket's counter is a month of shopping at a time
The month's shopping of a hostel or an office
A hostel warden or an office clerk comes once a month with a long list and a trolley, and asks for a GST bill for the whole lot. Eighty lines, each with its own rate, are written by hand over half an hour while the rest of the shop waits. A wrong line is found by the buyer's accountant weeks later, and the shop's name is on the bill.
Farmers' produce on a card of prices beside the packets
Local farmers' vegetables and fruit are brought in for the week and priced on a card, beside the packets from the plains. The card is wiped by the damp and read by the helper from memory. A customer pays one rate at the counter and sees another on the board.
A back store the rains cut off from the supplier for a week
When the road is shut, a week of cartons does not come. The supermarket's back store thins by Thursday and the aisle's shelves look half empty by Saturday. You do not know which carton to ration, and customers ask for what they bought last week.
Tools for aisles of packets, crates of vegetables and a back store
Bills on your phone
A bill that holds Lohit ginger by the kilo beside packets by the piece, so the local lot and the packet from far each have a line of their own.
Godown stock
The oranges and ginger from nearby orchards counted at the back store apart from the packets that came from far, so each season's local stock reads on its own.
Daily reports
The sales on each day a tour vehicle stopped, kept, so the next stop's stock of snacks and water is set from them.
From the hostel's monthly basket to the gourds by the kilo
The hostel's basket leaves on a hill road, and the bill goes with the sacks
The hostel's rice, dal, oil and soap leave the store in sacks, tins and cartons, each with its own unit. The road to the hostel is a hill road, and a slide can hold the vehicle for a day. The bill made at loading, with its GST, is the record of what left the store, so when the load reaches the warden late, nobody argues about what was sent.
A card of prices that is the same as the screen
Add each farmer's produce as an item with the rate for the week, named for the farmer. When the next farmer brings the same vegetable at another rate, it is an item beside the first, and the card for the week is written from the screen.
Rationing oil and tea by the days the road stays shut
On the first morning the road is shut, families ask for their usual oil, salt and tea. Count the back store, divide what you have by the days the road may stay shut, and give each family a share. The local greens, which still arrive, need no ration.
A store of women's groups' goods that put its bills and its stock together
Baskets, sections and two stores: what supermarket owners here ask
Tourist vehicles stop here for ten minutes. Can I read past stops to know how much water and snacks to keep?
Yes. Open the days when vehicles stopped and read how many snacks and bottles of water went out. Keep the same for the next stop, and a little more if the day was a holiday.
Households that grow their own rice come to me for oil, salt and tea. Can their monthly basket be one bill?
Yes. These households grow the rice and come only for what the field does not give, so their basket is short: oil, salt and tea, and no rice on it. Put the three on one bill under the household's name.
A hostel buys on monthly credit. Can its baskets sit on one page?
Yes. Open a page in the hostel's name. Each month's basket is a bill on that page, and when the payment comes it goes on the same page.
Lohit's oranges and Tirap's rice fields behind the shelves
Oranges, ginger, pineapple and large cardamom from Lohit reach local markets and markets in Assam in large quantities each season. A supermarket in a town of the state sells goods that came from far, and it also sees local produce arrive in bulk, so its owner has to count both kinds of stock. A basket in such a shop holds oranges and ginger that came from a few hours away beside tea and oil that came from a few days away, and the two reach the shelf in very different ways. The owner who counts both knows which half of the aisle is local.
Tirap's economy is farm-based: over 80 percent of people depend on agriculture, rice is the main crop, with maize, millets, oilseeds and vegetables. A supermarket that serves such a district sells to many households whose food comes in part from their own fields, and whose baskets are different from a city's. Rice, maize and millets are bought by weight and often by the sack by households that farm, while the packets in the aisle go to households that do not. The two kinds of buyer fill different baskets, and the report shows it.