Billing for your kirana and grocery shop in Jammu and Kashmir
The salt tea sugar, the dry fruit bowls and the cash box, all counted on one phone.
Why a Kashmir kirana loses the evening count between fingerprint cash, tea sugar and dry fruit
Cash given on a fingerprint, and cash taken for sugar
Some kirana shops also give villagers cash against their Aadhaar fingerprint. A woman collects her money, then buys tea, sugar and salt with part of it, and the cash box now holds two kinds of money. At closing the box is short or over by a small amount, and you do not know whether the sale or the cash given out caused it.
The trip to the wholesale lane with a list on a torn paper
Before the shutter goes up you walk to the wholesale lane with a list on the back of an old bill. You forget the baking soda, the lot of salt is half what you needed, and the paper is gone by the afternoon. Next morning you go again, because nobody can say what was bought yesterday.
Almonds and walnuts weighed out by the hundred grams
In the weeks before Eid, dry fruits are the busiest corner of the shop. Customers want a hundred grams of almonds, two hundred of walnuts, a little of each in one bag. You weigh and add every handful in your head, and by evening the steel bowls hold less than the sales say.
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Tools for a grocery shop that wakes up before the lane does
Low stock warnings
A warning on salt, baking soda and tea leaves before the morning walk to the wholesale lane, so the list is made at the shelf and not on the road.
Daily reports
Today's sales at a glance, kept apart from the cash you handed out to the village, so the evening box has one clear number to match.
Online orders
A family from the next village sends its month's list the day the road reopens, and it reaches your phone as one order, the first of the day.
From the list written before the wholesale lane to the bowl of walnuts at closing
The woman's tea, sugar and salt on a bill she can show, apart from the cash she collected
When a woman collects her cash and then buys tea, sugar and salt, give her a bill for the three. It is the shop's bill, not the cash, and it can go to her phone. If a neighbour asks her what she paid, or the box is short by a few rupees, the bill is what she and you both look at.
The list made at the shelf, even on a snow morning
On a snow morning the walk to the lane is slow, and what you forget is the small thing that sells once a week. The list was made at the shelf the evening before, small things included, so the long walk is for buying and not for remembering. The torn paper stays in the drawer.
Dry fruit bowls that empty on the count, not by surprise
Set almonds, walnuts and raisins as items sold by the gram, each with its own stock. Every handful on a bill comes off its bowl's count. In the Eid week you see which bowl will be empty by evening and fill it from the back before the customer asks.
The fields and orchards a Kashmir grocery customer lives by
The families who shop at a Kashmir grocery earn their living from the land and the trade around them, as these districts show.
- Jammu city's Narwal fruit and vegetable mandi was upgraded between 2021 and 2023 with improved sheds, a Mandi Plaza building and a 100-tonne weighbridge.
- Agriculture is central to Anantnag district's economy: in 2019-20, 64.56% of the reporting area was under agriculture.
- Most people in Kupwara depend on agriculture and horticulture, and walnuts are a major product and business of the district.
- In Kalakote tehsil of Rajouri district, the main livelihood is agriculture and allied work, and coal is the main resource, exported outside.
A self-help group store that moved its bills and stock off paper
Questions Kashmir kirana owners ask
Villagers take cash on their fingerprint at my shop and then buy from me. How do I keep the cash for sales apart?
Make a bill for every sale. At closing, today's sales show what selling brought in, so the rest of the cash box is what you handed out to the village and what you started the day with.
Some of my sacks reach the shop an hour after I do, on a porter's back. When do I add them to the count?
Add a lot when it is set down in the shop, not when you bought it. The count then holds only what is on your shelf. The sack on the porter's back goes in later.
The wholesaler's rate falls when I take more sacks. How do I know if the bigger load really paid?
Look at how long the big load stood. Sacks that sit on your shelf for weeks have eaten the saving, in the money tied up in them. A smaller load that sold in a week and was bought again may have paid more. In the snow weeks a big load is a comfort, but only the part that sells pays you back.
Payments by fingerprint and the wholesale lane of Srinagar
Retail stores in Jammu and Kashmir grew over 134 per cent in value and 89 per cent in volume of Aadhaar-enabled payment transactions in FY24, a PayNearby report found. A shop that does this work handles two flows of money every day, the one from selling and the one given out against a fingerprint.
Srinagar's Parimpora fruit mandi mainly supplies fruits, vegetables and groceries for the region; wholesalers sell there every morning to retailers and street vendors. A shop that buys from a morning lane like that is out before the shutter of its own shop is up, and has to remember what it needs.