Billing for your kirana and general store in Ladakh
Salt, tea, flour and oil counted into the godown before the pass closes, and out of it all winter.
What a kirana in a snowed-in village keeps on one phone
Godown stock
The unheated godown with the candles and salt counted as a place of its own, read from the warm counter.
Credit book (khata)
A page for each house the snow has cut off, with every packet of tea and bag of salt on its own dated line until the road opens.
Low stock warnings
A warning on each of the eight goods that ride on one truck, so you see which is nearest empty on the day the truck must be asked for.
Daily reports
Each day's sales kept, so in March you can find the one week in January when the counter emptied fastest.
.jpg){kind=link}
From the last truck of autumn to the first one after the thaw
The last warm week's count against last winter's slow weeks
Before the road closes, count what is in the godown and what is on the shelf, each on its own. The ration centre covers what the card covers, so the winter list is for what the card does not: the families' salt, tea and sugar, which they cannot borrow from far away. Keep the list in two parts, the godown's and the shelf's, and stock what each part lacks before the first snow comes.
Salt, tea and matches set to warn you first, and read through December
Give salt, tea and matches a higher low-stock level than the rest, and watch their count through December. If it falls faster than on the same days last year, the warning reaches you while you can still ask the next truck, or a neighbour with spare stock, before a house is left without them.
A no for the thick candles, said at once, with her name against them
A customer asks for thick candles in a village cut off by snow. Open the item and read the count. If it says none, tell her at once and write her name against the candles, so when the truck comes you know who to send word to first. She is not left walking from shop to shop in the cold.
Why a Ladakh kirana fills its godown before the first snow and still runs short in February
Eight goods on one truck, and the truck that comes late
Your list for the cold months has eight goods on it: rice, flour, oil, sugar, salt, tea, soap and candles. They climb on one truck, and when it is late the list reaches the shop half filled. Each good empties at its own pace, and the one that empties first is the one you cannot get until the thaw.
The family with a ration card and the part the card does not cover
Many families take their rice and flour from the ration centre, then come to your counter for tea, oil, soap and everything the centre does not give. You know what each family usually takes, but only from long habit. When the wife who always came is replaced by her son, the habit is gone and the list has to be taught again.
The only counter in the village, for as long as the road stays shut
In a village the snow has cut off, yours is the only shop. Everyone takes what they need, and some pay and some do not, because nowhere else can be reached. By February you remember some houses well and others not at all, and the notebook in the cold shop is the only record there is.
Women's groups whose shop records came off paper
Questions Ladakh kirana owners ask about winter stock and ration families
Families with ration cards buy from me only what the centre does not give. Can I keep a page for them?
Yes. A page in the family's name holds what the card did not cover. On the days the road is shut and the village has nowhere else to go, the page shows who took what from you alone, and which house is using the winter stock fastest.
A driver carries a village's list down on the bus and the goods back up. Whose page is it?
The village family's page. The goods are billed to the family that will pay for them, and the driver is only the hand that carried the list, so his name never takes the place of theirs.
Snow cuts off a village and one house takes a week's goods at one go. How do I know what is left for the others?
Bill the house item by item. Each item's count comes down by its share, so the shelf you see when the bill is done is what the rest of the village can still buy.
Stocking before Zojila closes, and the ration cards of Leh and Kargil
Kargil and Leh shop owners must stock essential commodities for winter before Zojila Pass closes with snow. In November 2022 the first snowfall came before stocking was complete. A year's order is, in the end, a few weeks of lorries on one road. The shops of Kargil and Leh between them hold what the two districts will eat until spring, which is why a shop owner there watches the pass the way a farmer watches the sky.
Ladakh's food department runs 404 sale centres giving rations to 2,26,657 people on 52,585 ration cards across Leh and Kargil, now through e-POS machines. A kirana sits beside these centres and sells the rest of what a family needs, which is why a shop owner who knows each family's habit keeps those customers. The card is a family's share of staples and not its whole table, so the centre's counter and the kirana's work side by side.