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Billing for your garment shop in Silvassa, Daman and Diu

A factory's uniform order, a visitor's T-shirt and the harvest-time account of a village family, on one phone.

Women customers sitting on a shop floor choosing embroidered cloth with a shopkeeper, saris hanging behind
Women customers sitting on a shop floor choosing embroidered cloth with a shopkeeper, saris hanging behind Photo: Jan Bockaert, CC BY-SA 2.0

What helps a cloth shop that sells to factories, villages and visitors

  • GST bills

    A tax bill for a factory's uniform list, the shirt sizes and the trouser sizes each on a line of their own.

  • Credit book (khata)

    A page for the man who takes new clothes for the journey home on the last evenings before the festival train, dated line by line until the wage comes. When his village is two states away, the page is what you have of him.

  • Bills on your phone

    A T-shirt, shorts and a cap for a visitor who is leaving on the evening bus, billed on the spot.

Bolts of pastel and white suit fabric standing on wooden shelves
Bolts of pastel and white suit fabric standing on wooden shelves Photo: McKay Savage from London, UK, CC BY 2.0

New clothes before the train home, a factory's uniform list and a hot Saturday's T-shirts

  1. The last evenings before the festival train leaves

    Many of the workers in the factories came from other states, and the lanes empty on the same few nights when they leave for home together. In those last evenings the shop is full at closing time: men with a bundle of new clothes for the journey, each wanting a shirt in his own size. The size he asks for is the one that has run out, and the line behind him grows while you search the shelf.

  2. The factory that orders uniforms for its whole staff

    A factory sends its store-keeper with a list: shirts and trousers for the drivers, the guards and the canteen staff, each in a different size. It wants the whole order in one bill, with the tax shown. A handwritten list with a long column of names and sizes on it is returned for corrections, and the order waits.

  3. T-shirts and caps that visitors buy on a hot Saturday

    Near the beach, visitors who came without a change of clothes walk in for a T-shirt, shorts or a cap. They ask for a size, try it on and are gone in five minutes. The rack runs out of the middle sizes by Saturday evening, and on Monday you do not know which sizes to order. Shorts and swimwear are bought in a hurry and tried on in the shop, and a size that does not fit is a sale lost, not a sale delayed.

Rows of folded plain cloth in pink, purple, brown and blue standing on edge in a shop
Rows of folded plain cloth in pink, purple, brown and blue standing on edge in a shop Photo: Ninara, CC BY 2.0
Shelves of brightly coloured folded saris stacked in neat rows
Shelves of brightly coloured folded saris stacked in neat rows Photo: screaming_monkey, CC BY-SA 2.0

From the uniform order in one bill to the sizes counted before the Sunday crowd

  • The factory's uniform page, month by month and role by role

    A factory takes on new men from other states every month, and the store-keeper comes with a list for the joiners only. The uniforms go by role and by size: shirts and trousers for the drivers, the guards and the canteen staff, each on a line of its own. Keep one page in the factory's name, and it shows month by month which role got which size.

  • The beach crowd's sizes, counted before Monday

    Visitors come off the sand at Devka or Jampore with wet clothes and a bus to catch, and they take the T-shirt and the shorts that fit. Make each size its own item, and by Sunday night the count shows which sizes the beach took. Monday's order is made from that count, and the middle sizes are back on the rack for the next hot weekend.

  • Three sets of the same cloth, one bill for the family

    A family from a village near Silvassa takes the same cloth for three children, one set each. Put the three sets on one bill in the name of the parent who pays, each on its own line with its own metres. The family sees every set on WhatsApp, and you are not left with three scraps of paper.

Artisans whose own shop and records went onto one app

Tisser Artisan Trust, which works with artisans in Maharashtra, moved its shop and its records onto Bharatrath as part of its digital change.

Questions garment shops in Silvassa, Daman and Diu ask

A factory sends its uniform list back with corrected sizes and adds joiners next month. How do I bill it?

Bill the corrected sizes as the list now stands. Next month make a second bill under the factory's name for the joiners. Each is a GST bill with its own date.

At a Varli wedding the cousins who dance all need matching cloth, and one elder pays for the lot at harvest. Whose page does it go on?

On the elder's page. Each cousin's cut of cloth is a bill on it with the metres and the date, and the harvest payment is written when it comes. What is left is the cloth less the payment.

A visitor wants the swimwear top in one size and the bottom in another. Can they be two items?

Yes. The top and the bottom are two items, each with its own size, rate and count, so the bill carries exactly the two he tried on and the count of each falls.

More questions every shop asks

Yarn from the territory's mills and the dances of a tribal wedding

Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu contributes 80 percent of India's texturising yarn, says Invest India. Yarn is where cloth begins, so a cloth shop here sits close to where much of the country's thread is made, and polyester and blended pieces are everyday stock.

No occasion in tribal life in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, be it a marriage or harvest, is complete without a folk dance, says the district profile. A family dressing for a wedding or a harvest buys in a lot, and often pays when the harvest comes in.