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Billing for your grocery store in Himachal Pradesh

The storm shelf, the snow-month stock and every family's page, kept on your phone.

A smiling shopkeeper behind his counter in a small shop packed with jars, packets and sachets
A smiling shopkeeper behind his counter in a small shop packed with jars, packets and sachets

What a hill grocery keeps on the phone from autumn to the thaw

  • Daily reports

    Every day of last winter kept on its own line, so the autumn order is read from the shelf's own history and not from a feeling.

  • Low stock warnings

    A warning that candles, matches or batteries are running out before the snow, while the lorry can still reach the road head.

  • Orders to suppliers

    The big autumn order to your wholesaler, with what comes in noted when the lorry reaches the road head.

From Sirmaur's cooperative shops to Una's industrial belt: where a hill grocer hears about trade

A grocer on a Himachal slope hears about trade in other districts from the customers who walk in, and these are some of the facts they talk about.

  • Sirmaur has 305 registered cooperative societies, including 121 primary agricultural ones, and 159 cooperative fair price shops supplying essential goods.
  • Una is well developed in industry because it is close to Punjab. Mehatpur, Gagret, Tahliwal and Amb are its main industrial centres.
  • Mandi town sits where National Highways 20, 21 and 70 meet, and the whole district depends on it for trade and commerce.
  • In Shimla, Lower Bazaar is where people go for daily items.

Last winter's days, the storm shelf counted first and the son who orders from the town

  • The first lorry after the thaw, ordered from the winter's gap

    Open the count you took in autumn and the count now. The gap for each item is what the village really used through the winter. The first lorry after the thaw brings that much of the fast goods, and what stayed on the shelf waits for the next order.

  • Candles and batteries, counted before every forecast

    Before every forecast the village asks for candles, matches, batteries, kerosene and wicks, and it asks all in one afternoon. You know before the sky turns heavy how many of each stand on the shelf, so you can say yes to the first family and to the fiftieth, and the snow finds the shelf ready for the asking, whatever the village wants.

  • The month list that waits for the father's walk down the slope

    The father walks an hour down the slope, and his son in the town has already sent the month list from your shop's page, with the kerosene and the wicks on it. You pack it, and he carries it up in one load. The old man does not stand at the counter calling out the list from memory.

Open white sacks of grains and tea with handwritten price tags, a shopkeeper weighing goods behind
Open white sacks of grains and tea with handwritten price tags, a shopkeeper weighing goods behind Photo: Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France, CC BY 2.0
Rows of glass jars filled with spices and pulses on shop shelves
Rows of glass jars filled with spices and pulses on shop shelves Photo: McKay Savage from London, UK, CC BY 2.0

The only shop on the slope: a snow forecast, a closed pass and a winter to plan

  1. The only shop on the slope

    In a hill village the grocery is often the only shop for a long walk in any direction. It sells atta and oil, but also kerosene, soap, notebooks, a lamp wick and a packet of seeds. Each item has its own rate and its own unit, and a customer who has walked an hour wants everything on one list. By evening the shelf has gaps you cannot name.

  2. The snow forecast empties the candle shelf by afternoon

    The word of snow goes round the slope before the first flake. By afternoon the candles, matches, batteries and kerosene are gone, one family after another, and you are still billing by hand. By evening you cannot say how many of each went. The snow comes, and on the second day the lane still comes to an empty shelf.

  3. The pass closes and the shelf is all you have

    The day the pass closes, the shop is a shelf and a back room. What you took in autumn is what the village eats, burns and lights its lamps with until the thaw. In a lean autumn the money for the order is short too, so you buy the goods you fear to run out of first, and the rest on hope. What the village gets from elsewhere you cannot count. You count only what you bought.

Green terraced fields on a hillside near Mandi, with a few houses among the fruit trees
Green terraced fields on a hillside near Mandi, with a few houses among the fruit trees Photo: This Photo was taken by Timothy A. Gonsalves . Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author. I would much appreciate if you send me an email tagooty@yahoo.com or write on my talk page , for my information. Please contact me before commercial use. Please do not upload an edited image here without consulting me. I would like to make corrections only at my own source to ensure that the changes improve the image and are preserved. Otherwise you may upload an edited image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract ., CC BY-SA 4.0

Women's groups that moved from paper and fairs to one shop of their own

Swateja Mart, in Maharashtra, gives women's self-help groups a place to sell handmade food and crafts. Its bills and stock sat on paper and it sold only at local exhibitions and haats. Bharatrath gave it billing with live stock, and an online store.

What grocery store owners in Himachal ask

On the second day after the snow the shelf is bare and the lane still comes. What do I tell them?

Tell them the shelf is bare and the asking is written. Write what each family asked for on its page with the day, so that when the lorry climbs, the first sacks go to the families who asked first.

When the road opens, the village has used atta, oil and salt faster than I planned. What goes in the first order?

Put those three at the top of the order, in the quantity the count shows gone since the last lorry, and leave the slow goods for the next one. The first lorry then carries what no household can do without.

Seeds sell in spring and wicks in winter. Do I keep the winter goods on the phone after the thaw?

Yes. An item keeps its rate and count whether it sells or not. After the thaw the wicks and kerosene sit at their last count, and in autumn you read what is left before you order.

More questions every shop asks

Ration shops, snow-bound valleys and the village grocer

Of the 5,278 fair price shops in Himachal Pradesh, 3,360 are run by co-operative societies and not by individuals. The village grocery is the second counter beside them.

For far-flung and snow-bound areas such as Pangi, Lahaul & Spiti, Kinnaur and Bharmour, the state supplies corporation arranges advance stock for 3 to 8 months. The people of those valleys plan a winter's stock months ahead, and a grocer there has to plan the same way.