Billing for your fruit and vegetable shop in Manipur
Weights, heaps and a load that came late: the day's vegetables written once, on your phone.
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Why a month on the NH-2 turns a vegetable load into a loss
Trucks that take a month to arrive
During a prolonged blockade of the NH-2 highway, traders said trucks took 25 days to nearly a month to reach Imphal, and fish, onions and potatoes spoiled on the way. A shop that had paid for the load saw only a heap of rot at the door. With no note of what was ordered and what really came, there is nothing to show the supplier.
Papayas and greens that cannot wait for tomorrow
You sit at the stall in the morning with melons, papayas and a few bunches of greens, and by evening the greens have wilted. The women who sit beside you minded the stall yesterday, and they remember the greens that wilted yesterday better than you do. They say so to the customers, and the customers buy the melons and not the greens. The melons and papayas keep better than the greens, so what you mark down first is a choice you make every evening. Next week you buy the same quantity again, because nobody wrote down what wilted.
The picked-over heap at the end of the market day
By afternoon the buyers have picked the firm ones, and the heap holds the soft and the small. Nobody pays the morning's rate for what is left, and carried home it is gone by tomorrow. The last buyer bargains for the whole lot, and you have no number to bargain from.
Terrace cabbage and hill oranges: where the Manipur vegetable shelf comes from
The vegetable table in Imphal is filled from the hills and the valley around it.
- Bishnupur's district headquarters is popular for hill-grown oranges, yongchak (tree-bean) and vegetables.
- Senapati farmers grow paddy, maize, cabbage and potato on terraces; 80% of the area is forest.
- In Ukhrul, cultivators are 64.6% of main workers (2011 Census), and agricultural labourers are another 4.4%.
From the half-rotten load to the evening table by the road
The half sack that two stalls quarrel over
Two stall-holders buy one load and split it at the roadside, and by the end of the week the quarrel is about half a sack. Each stall has a page that shows what it took and what it owes, so the half sack is a line on a page.
The weeks when local greens run short, read from your own days
The daily report keeps every day, item by item. Look back at the weeks when the local vegetables thinned out and see which ones still sold and which you were left holding. The next such week, you bring in the ones that sold and leave the rest. The list of what you sold in a thin week is also a list of what to ask your supplier for the next time the road opens.
The morning stall and the evening table, in one account
If you sell in the market in the morning and from a table by the road in the evening, keep both under one account. At night you look at each separately and see where the day's money was made. The roadside table in the evening sells to people on their way home, who want a quick bill and a quick bag. On the evening table the buyers are people on their way back from work, who want a small amount quickly and a bill they can carry in a pocket.
Tools for a stall of greens, onions and Kachai lemons
Orders to suppliers
The order you sent for the load of onions and potatoes beside the note of what really came off the truck, for the day a spoiled load is questioned.
Bills on your phone
The hotel's buyer takes cabbage by the kilo and potatoes by the sack, and the bill goes to the hotel's phone with each weight on its own line before the Ima has finished wrapping the cabbage.
Low stock warnings
A warning on the Kachai lemons when the sacks you hold run low, so the next lot is asked for while a truck can still get through.
A farm's market stalls and online shop kept in one place
Questions Manipur vegetable and fruit sellers ask
Papayas and melons keep longer than greens. What does a late truck mean for my next order?
A late truck means the greens come tired or not at all. Order fewer greens and more papayas and melons for the weeks the road is bad, and ask the supplier for the greens only when the truck has left.
Why does the Kachai lemon go by the piece and not by weight?
Kachai lemons are small and known by name, and customers ask for them by count, so a piece rate is the one they understand. Keep them as an item by the piece beside the ordinary lemons by weight.
Yongchak is sold by the pod in the season and dried by the kilo later. Are they two items?
Yes. The fresh pod is an item by the piece or the handful and the dried yongchak an item by the kilo, each with its own rate and count, so a season's pods never use up the dried stock.
The Imphal vegetable gap and the Kachai lemon
Local vegetable output in Imphal's markets falls when the summer harvesting season ends, before winter crops reach the markets. In those weeks the shelf fills with vegetables from further away, at different rates and from different suppliers.
Kachai lemon from Ukhrul district holds a GI registration (GI-466) and is grown widely in Kachai village, about 140 km from Imphal. A shop that stocks it can keep it as an item of its own, apart from ordinary lemons.