Billing for your medical store in Chhattisgarh
A strip, two tablets and the monthly patient's udhaar, on one bill and one page.
Two strips of one salt, a shop page for the villages in the rains, and a bundle of ORS for a health worker
Both strips on one phone, each with its rate and its own count
The customer has seen the Dhanwantari store's lower rate and asks why yours is more. Show her both strips on the phone, each with its own rate and count, so the rate she compares is the rate on the bill. Your own margin on each strip is no guess, and the talk at the counter is about numbers.
A page of the rainy-season medicines you stock, sent to the village's WhatsApp group
Make a page for the shop that lists the medicines you keep for the rains: fever strips, ORS, the things the villages ask for in August. Send its link to the health worker's WhatsApp group and to the families who ask. They know before they set out that what they need is on your shelf, and the hour's walk has a purpose.
The village health worker's bundle of ORS packets, on a page in her name
A health worker from a village takes a bundle of ORS packets and paracetamol strips to keep with her, and pays when she next comes to town. Open a page in her name, put the bundle on it with the day, and note the payment when it comes. What she took is on the page, and nobody argues later about the count. The worker comes again with the empty packet and you know what she needs before she says it.
Tools for a counter that stocks a branded and a generic strip of one medicine
Bills on your phone
A bill in seconds for each family in the queue on the day the city's shutters are down, sent on WhatsApp to the phone of whoever came for the medicine.
Your own online shop
A shop page that lists the branded strip and the generic strip of one salt side by side, so a customer sees both before she comes to the counter.
Daily reports
The sales of the day the city's shutters were down, read beside an ordinary day.
Low stock warnings
The fever and loose-motion strips flagged in the rainy weeks while a few remain, so the order goes out that evening.
Mine, power and steel towns: where a Chhattisgarh chemist's patients work
A chemist's patients here work in very different places, and a few of the state's towns show it.
- Korba is called Urja Nagari, the power capital of Chhattisgarh, and some estimates say over 60 percent of its GDP comes from coal mining and related work.
- Raigarh is home to Jindal Steel's flagship integrated steel complex, with 3.6 million tonnes a year of steelmaking capacity and its own coal mine.
Why a chemist's day is lost when the city's shutters come down and when a family walks an hour for nothing
The day the chemists of the city keep their shutters down
When the chemists agree to shut for a day, the families who need a strip that morning go to the Dhanwantari store or go without, and some of them stay with the new store afterwards. The shop that is open has a queue and no list, and the shop that is shut loses the day and wonders what it lost. The families that came on the shut day remember which shop was open, and the next time they come with a long list.
A branded strip and a generic strip of one salt, and a customer who has seen the other store's rate
The same salt is on your shelf twice, a branded strip and a cheaper one. A customer says the Dhanwantari store sells it for less, and you explain it from memory, strip by strip. The explanation is the same each time, and no paper in her hand backs it.
A family walks an hour to town and finds the medicine is not on your shelf
People in the far villages cannot tell which chemist in town keeps the medicine they need. A family walks or rides an hour, asks at the first shop and finds it is out, then asks at a second. They do not know that you hold it, and you do not know that they came and went away. The family walks home with nothing, and the next time it goes straight to the shop it knows has it.
Questions Chhattisgarh medical stores ask
The camp pays weeks later and asks for a paper of what it was given. What can I hand over?
The camp's page, read down with each packet and strip on its day, or the camp's bills sent on WhatsApp to its number. When the camp pays, note the payment against the page, and the page shows nothing owing.
Which strips do my customers still ask me for after the Dhanwantari store opened?
Open the daily report for the days since it opened and read the strips by name. The ones still selling at the old pace are what customers come to you for.
On the day the city chemists keep their shutters down, families from other lanes come to me for the first time. Can I note them for the next time?
Yes. When the shutters come down, the day's bills show how many new families came to you and which strips they asked for. Stock those strips before the next such day, so the families who found you once find the shelf ready.
Chemists' shutters in Raipur and the state's Dhanwantari stores
Raipur chemists were asked to keep shops shut on 20 May 2026, demanding stricter rules on online medicine sales and misuse of prescriptions on platforms like WhatsApp. A bill from the counter, with the medicine and the quantity on its lines, is a paper the shop can stand behind.
In July 2023 officials said buyers had saved Rs 132 crore at the state's Dhanwantari medical stores and that rainy-season disease medicines must stay available. The rains are the season when a private chemist's shelf is judged the hardest.