Billing for your vegetable and fruit shop in Chhattisgarh
Bhaji by the bunch, lauki by the piece and onions by the kilo on one bill, whichever haat you are at.
A bunch, a piece and a kilo on the same bill, and an onion rate you can show
A bunch, a piece and a kilo, each on its own line of one bill
Give bhaji the bunch as its unit, lauki the piece and onions the kilo, each with its own rate. When the woman at the stall takes two bunches, one lauki and a kilo, the bill shows exactly that on its own lines. She can read it on her own phone, so the argument over a bunch never starts. A woman who buys the same bhaji every haat day soon knows what her bill will look like.
The dearer kilo of onions, when the lorry from another state comes late
The lorry is late, the heap is thin and the lot you paid for costs more than the last one. Change the onion rate on your phone before the first customer comes. The regular who notices the price reads the new rate on her bill and hears the reason from you in one sentence, and she takes her kilo without carrying the doubt home.
Each haat as its own shop in the evening count
Make each haat stall a shop under your one account. At the end of the day, open that stall and see what sold there. After two or three weeks you know which haat takes most of your onions, which one only takes the bhaji, and which one you can leave. Haat by haat, a count at night takes the place of the guess about whether the long walk was worth it.
Tools for a stall that moves from one haat to the next
Bills on your phone
Three taps at the red bhaji heap: bunch, bunch, lauki. The onions are weighed last, and the bill is complete before the next woman reaches the heap.
Many shops, one owner
Tuesday's haat, Thursday's haat and the home stall each keep their own count of onions and bhaji, so what is left of the heap at one haat is not taken from the stock of another.
UPI payments
A QR code taped to the cart's rail for the woman with no change in her bag, and her payment on your phone before she has crossed the lane.
Daily reports
Last Diwali week's days opened beside this year's, to see how many kilos of onion went out and when the heap was gone.
Why the cart that leaves for the haat comes back with a count nobody trusts
Lauki by the piece, bhaji by the bunch, onions by the kilo
A woman at your stall takes two bunches of red bhaji, one lauki and a kilo of onions. You count the bunches, look at the lauki and weigh the onions, and the total comes from three different ways of selling. When she says she took only one bunch, you have no way to show her, and a small argument over a bunch costs you more than the bunch.
On the off day of the onion lorry, the heap is down to a handful
Onions come in by lorry from another state, and the lorry does not come every day. The day before it arrives the heap is small, the customers who came for onions walk across the road, and some of them stay there. You never know the day before how many kilos you will need.
Which haat pays for the walk, and which only pays for the tea?
You walk or cycle to three haats in a week, and one of them is an hour away. At night the tea and the bus fare are spent, a few baskets are still half full, and you cannot say if the far haat earned more than your own corner would have. You keep going to all three because you never counted.
Steel towns and a power town: where a vegetable shop's regulars work
A vegetable shop here sells to people with very different jobs. Two towns show it.
- Bhilai, in Durg district, is called the Steel City of Central India, and its economy depends mainly on the Bhilai Steel Plant and the small units around it.
- Korba is known as Urja Nagari, the power capital of Chhattisgarh, and some estimates say over 60 percent of its GDP comes from coal mining and related work.
Farmer groups whose market stalls came into one account
Questions Chhattisgarh vegetable shops ask
A woman buys at Tuesday's haat and pays at Thursday's. How is that different from a month's credit?
It is only two days long. Her page is opened on Tuesday and read with her at Thursday's haat, while the sum is small and fresh. A month's credit is read when the month ends.
Bhaji wilts by the haat's evening. Should I cut its rate in the last hours?
Yes. Wilted bhaji will not wait for Thursday, so a lower rate in the last hours clears it. Put the rate back to the board rate the next morning.
It rained on last Thursday's haat. What does rain do to bhaji and onions on the ground?
Rain wilts the bhaji in an hour and turns the onions on the ground to wet sacks. Buyers stay home, so bring less bhaji and carry the onions in sacks to the next wet haat.
Onions from Maharashtra and the Raipur wholesale market
Chhattisgarh's markets usually get onions from Maharashtra mandis. In the 2019 monsoon floods, Raipur traders turned to higher-priced Madhya Pradesh wholesalers, and retail onion rose to Rs 30 per kg.
In October 2020 the head of Raipur's Alu Pyaj Vyapari Sangh, the potato and onion traders' association, said Raipur district's wholesale market generally needs 300 to 400 tonne of onions daily, with prices expected to ease after Diwali.