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Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Silvassa, Daman and Diu

The canteen's morning order with the tax shown, and the chikoo that ripens on your shelf, on one phone.

A vegetable seller in a white shirt sitting behind baskets of tomatoes, beans, okra and green chillies
A vegetable seller in a white shirt sitting behind baskets of tomatoes, beans, okra and green chillies Photo: Christopher Fynn from Thimphu, Bhutan, CC BY 2.0

The cook who takes the sacks and the chikoo that ripens on the shelf

  1. The canteen cook buys big and the factory pays late

    Factories around Silvassa and Daman run canteens and tiffin kitchens for their workers. The cook comes every morning for tomatoes, onions and gourds by the sack, and the factory's accounts section pays the whole month in one go. In between, the shop owner keeps a slip for each morning, and the slip for the rainy Tuesday is the one that goes missing. When the accountant asks for each day with the tax shown, a handwritten slip will not do. A day's order for the whole kitchen is the biggest sale of your morning.

  2. Hard chikoo on Monday, ripe chikoo on Thursday

    A box of chikoo comes in hard and ripens on your shelf over a few days. The hard ones suit the buyer who takes them home for the week, and the ripe ones must go the same day or they are lost. You tell one price to the first buyer and another to the second, and by closing you cannot say how many of each you sold.

  3. Visitors on the coast ask for fruit by the piece, the plate and the kilo

    Near the beach, one visitor wants a kilo of grapes, the next wants a plate of cut fruit, and a third asks for six coconuts for the car. The scale and the counting are done in your head, and a visitor in a hurry pays with a phone, not with change you do not have. In the humid weeks, cut papaya and watermelon will not last till evening.

A vegetable cart seen from above, with trays of tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes and the seller at his scale
A vegetable cart seen from above, with trays of tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes and the seller at his scale Photo: Sharvarism, CC BY-SA 4.0

From the canteen's morning GST bill to the wet-week count

  • The rainy Tuesday's slip is a line, not a loss

    Each morning's canteen order is made sack by sack, with the kilos of tomatoes, onions and gourds each on a line of their own. When the cook changes his mind at the gate, the line changes and the rest of the order stays. The slip for the rainy Tuesday no longer goes missing, because it was never a slip.

  • The chikoo season's boxes come before the last box has ripened

    In the chikoo season, which comes round every year, a new box arrives before the last one has finished ripening, so the shelf holds hard and ripe fruit together. Selling the ripe first is easy to say and hard to do while a queue waits. With the ripe count on the phone you see how many ripe ones are left, and the buyer who wants fruit for the week is steered to the hard ones.

  • The same wet weeks, read again next year

    When the rains are heavy, local brinjal and tomato from the fields nearby are plentiful and cheap. Open the daily report of those weeks and see how much you sold at what level. Next year you know how big a heap to put out on the first wet Monday.

A seller's hand placing a weight on a scale beside a heap of green limes
A seller's hand placing a weight on a scale beside a heap of green limes
Baskets of oranges, custard apples, dragon fruit, mangoes and pomegranates at a fruit shop
Baskets of oranges, custard apples, dragon fruit, mangoes and pomegranates at a fruit shop Photo: Rvkindia, CC BY-SA 3.0

Tools for a vegetable counter between factory gates and the beach

  • GST bills

    The canteen's morning order as a tax bill, each vegetable weighed on its own line, in the accountant's WhatsApp before nine.

  • Credit book (khata)

    The coconut cart and the cut-fruit stall by the beach, who settle on Sunday night after a rainy week of stock taken at dawn and little sold.

  • UPI payments

    A QR code at the beach cart for the visitor with a phone and no cash, buying six coconuts for the car.

A wide beach of pale yellow sand under a bright blue sky at Nagoa Beach in Diu, the sea beyond and two people far off
A wide beach of pale yellow sand under a bright blue sky at Nagoa Beach in Diu, the sea beyond and two people far off Photo: JediPro, CC BY-SA 3.0

A farmers' market whose stalls and online shop came to one place

The Farm works with farmers, farmer groups and Farmer Producer Organisations across India. Bills from their farmers' market stalls and the stock of their own online shop now come to one place on Bharatrath.

Questions from vegetable shops in Silvassa, Daman and Diu

Chikoo on the beach stall is hard and ripe at once. How do I keep the ripe ones in front?

Put the ripe fruit in the front basket and the hard fruit behind, and sell from the front. The ripe go first in the heat of the beach, and the hard ones turn while they wait.

The cook changes the order at the gate after I have weighed. Can the bill wait until the weights are final?

Yes. Weigh at the gate, put the final kilos of each vegetable on the bill with the tax worked out, and send it. The morning's bill is made when the sacks are settled, not before.

In the wet weeks the greens go soft by evening. Can I see by afternoon what is left and bill it at a lower rate?

Yes. Each green has its own count that falls with every bill. At three in the afternoon open the count, and change the rate for the rest of the day. Yesterday's bills stay at yesterday's rate.

More questions every shop asks

Chikoo auctions and the kharif vegetable fields of Dadra and Nagar Haveli

The Daman agriculture office invites open-bid auctions for the sale of chickoo fruits every year, and notices are posted for 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. For a fruit shop this means the chickoo season is a fixed yearly event, so a shop owner can plan the weeks when that fruit will be plentiful.

Vegetables grown in Dadra and Nagar Haveli include brinjal, tomato, cabbage and cauliflower, and the land is cultivated mostly in the kharif season, when rainfall is highest. That is why local brinjal and tomato are cheapest in the same wet weeks that make the greens go soft.