Billing for your kirana store in Bihar
The child's chit, the month's ration and the oil rate that moved at the wholesaler, all in one place.
From the chit at the counter to the salt that never runs out
The week's chits, added into one payment on the weekend
The mother sends the child with a chit most days of the week, and she pays only on the weekend. Each chit is one small bill under her name. On Saturday the child's trips are one sum she hears once, and the week is paid in one go, with no argument over a single chit.
The Chhath list, sold off the shelf in three days and counted as it goes
Wheat, jaggery, ghee, raw rice and sugar do not run out together. Keep each as an item and the count drops with each bill, so by the second day you see the jaggery nearly gone while the wheat is fine. The saving is one small trip: the order for jaggery and ghee goes out on the second day, and the third day is not a rush for everything.
The day this family's money comes, read from its page
A family comes on the day money arrives from the city, and that day is different for each house. Its page shows the dates of its bills, so after two or three months you know which day to expect it. On that morning you have its rice and atta ready, and the family does not wait behind the line, nor does the line wait for the family.
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A child with a chit, a ration list and a rate that moved overnight
A child at the counter with a chit
Mothers send a child with a slip of paper: one kilo of rice, a packet of salt, a bottle of oil, and the money will come in the evening. You read the slip, pack the goods, and add a line in the notebook under a first name. By evening the mother says she sent only one kilo of rice, the child says two, and the slip has been lost on the way home.
Oil and sugar move at the wholesaler, the shelf stays the same
When the mustard oil or the sugar changes rate at the wholesaler, the new rate is in your head by afternoon and on the shelf tag by the end of the week. In between, one customer pays the old price and the next pays the new one, and a regular who remembers the old figure is sure you have cheated him.
Rice and atta weighed from the sack while the line waits
On the day money comes, families want the whole month: rice, atta, dal, oil, sugar, tea, soap. Rice and atta sit in open sacks and are scooped and weighed one family at a time, with the next family already calling out its list. By the third family you are guessing at what the first one took, and the line behind does not wait for you to remember.
What a kirana counter in Bihar keeps on its phone
Bills on your phone
Make the bill from the child's chit while you pack: rice by the kilo, mustard oil by the litre and salt by the packet.
Credit book (khata)
A page for each mother whose child comes with a slip, with every chit dated, so the evening argument is about a line and not a memory.
Low stock warnings
Sattu, chura and mustard oil are what the lane asks for every haat day. The phone shows which of them is running out, so the trip to the wholesaler for the next haat starts from that short list.
Orders to suppliers
The wholesaler's order for the weekly haat, sattu, chura and oil, written from the sacks that went last haat, so the trip is for what really sold.
Daily reports
The day-wise count of the staples through the month, so you see the rush at the start of it and the quiet days before the next.
Rice, sugar and potatoes: where a kirana shelf in Bihar begins
What a kirana in Bihar stocks begins in the fields of these districts, and the people who come in tell you how the season went.
- Patna is an old farm hub and trading centre, where grain, sugarcane, sesame and medium-grained Patna rice are the busiest exports.
- Farming is the main income in East Champaran, with rice and sugar cane as its major crops.
- Samastipur has many sugar mills and a large jute mill, and it is a major potato producer with over 20 cold storages.
- Gaya is where the sesame and jaggery sweet tilkut comes from, the district's product on the One District One Product list.
- The Sonepur cattle fair in Saran meets every November on Kartik Purnima, where the Ganges and the Gandak join, and it ranks among the biggest in Asia.
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Questions from kirana owners in Bihar
Sattu and chura come in sacks and I sell a quarter kilo at a time. Does the sack's count come down?
Yes. Each sale takes its weight off that item's stock, so at closing the report shows how many kilos of sattu and chura are left in the sack.
A child comes with a chit that says only 'the usual'. How do I know what that is?
Open the family's page. Its earlier bills are listed with their days, so you read what the usual was, pack it, and add the new thing the chit asks for.
Salt, matchboxes and sachets sell for a rupee or two. Do they slow the line?
No. Make each one an item and tap it with its quantity once. A customer who buys five sachets and a matchbox gets the total at once, and the line behind him keeps moving.
Madhubani's families and JEEViKA's village wholesale
Madhubani painting, now made on paper and cloth for sale, has become a main source of income for scores of families in the district. Money that comes when a painting is sold does not come every day, so a kirana in Madhubani can expect to hear that a family will pay when its work has sold.
In Bihar, JEEViKA's Grameen Bazaar works as a wholesale point where village kirana shops run by self-help group women buy goods to sell again. A shop that buys from such a point and sells by the packet keeps two sets of numbers, what it paid and what it took, and both fit on the same phone.