Billing for your stationery and book shop in Manipur
A class list, a school's term account and the textbooks that arrive in batches: all counted on your phone.
From the class list read out at the counter to the school's account closed in one go
Chart paper and colours for the school's festival programme
Before a school's festival programme the teacher wants chart paper, colours and pins. Chart paper goes by the sheet and colours by the packet, each with its own rate, so the bill for the programme shows both clearly. A teacher from the hills who has walked and ridden a long way for one shopping trip does not want to hear that the books are not counted.
The peon's slip becomes a bill the headmaster can read
The school's peon brings a slip for chalk, registers and ink. You make the bill from the slip line by line and send it to the headmaster's phone, so the man who decides reads the same lines the peon carried, and when the amount is disputed there is more than the slip's words.
A term read in three rows
Make copies and pens, textbooks and art colours separate items. At the end of the term the daily report shows each as its own row, so you see how the term's mix went and stock the next one by it. At the term's end the report reads like a short story of the school: the copies of June, the textbooks of the first weeks and the colours of the festival.
Why the first week after a school reopens is the hardest of the year
The child from a far village, buying a term's copies in one trip
A child who has come from a village far from the school buys a term's copies in one trip, because she will not be back for weeks. The list is long and the money is counted out coin by coin. You count, add and recount, and the parent behind her waits. A child from a far village does not come back for weeks, so the list must be right the first time. A parent behind her has a child with the same list and the same wait.
The peon who comes with a slip from the school
The school sends its peon with a slip for chalk, registers and ink. He is not the one who decides, and the headmaster who does is never at the counter. When the school disputes the amount, only the slip's words remain. The festival is the day the school shows its work to the village, and the chart paper that did not arrive shows too.
The school festival order that is taken in two lots
The teacher orders chart paper and colours three days before the festival and takes part of it, the rest the day after. Two lots, two slips, and on the festival morning nobody is sure which lot the pins were in. The stage board stays bare of pins.
Business in Imphal East and Imphal West: the lanes around a Manipur book shop
Two places show the scale of trade around Imphal.
- Imphal East has 45,346 business establishments (Economic Census 2013).
- Ima Keithel in Imphal West is an all-women market with about 3,000 'Imas' running stalls.
- Moreh, the international trade centre of Manipur, lies at the southern end of Chandel, a border district with Myanmar.
- In Ukhrul, cultivators are 64.6% of main workers (2011 Census).
Tools for a shelf of copies, geometry boxes and board textbooks
Low stock warnings
The class's copies and geometry boxes listed as short in the first week, before the next parent asks.
Orders to suppliers
The order for a changed textbook, sized by the old book's count so you do not order more than the shelf needs.
Sell to other businesses
The village shop that keeps copies and pens for its own children takes them from you on credit before the term opens, and what it took is on its page until the first parents have paid.
Questions Manipur stationery and book shops ask
The child from the far village comes back weeks later for the books I did not have. How do I see what she took the first time?
Open the page in her family's name. The first visit's bill is there with its day, so you see the books she took and hand her only what is still missing.
A school's printed copy-book is running low mid-term and the peon asks how many I have. What do I tell him?
Open that copy-book's count and read the number out. If it is low, order it that day, so the peon has his answer and the school has its copies.
Can I hand the shop to my sister for a week and see what she sold?
Yes. Every sale she makes is a bill on the account. When you return, open those days and read what went, item by item.
Classes 1 to 8 reopened weeks before the higher classes. Can I read the two rushes apart?
Name the copies and books with their class, and open the days of each reopening in the daily list. The lower classes' rush and the higher classes' rush then show as two sets of lines, and next year you order for the first before the second.
Schools and the school board in Manipur
After violence began on 3 May 2023, Manipur classes 1 to 8 reopened from 5 July and higher classes from 10 August, the education minister said. For a book shop, the rush came in those weeks.
Student group DESAM has asked for a probe into 160 tonnes of paper bought for the state school board (BOSEM) in December 2025, and wants action over sub-standard textbooks. Parents who read such news look closely at the books they buy.