Billing for your milk booth or dairy in Puducherry
The morning litre, the monthly page and the curd set from tonight's leftover, on one phone.
Tools for a booth that sells by the litre and settles by the month
Orders to suppliers
An order sent to the supplier outside the territory for more packet milk, and the truck's packets noted against it when they arrive.
Low stock warnings
A warning on the milk the French-quarter guest houses take every morning, before the evening order closes, so they do not wake to a shortfall.
Daily reports
The litres of a Pongal morning read beside an ordinary week, so you see how many more cans the society had to send for the festival.
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From the morning litre at the door to the curd set from tonight's leftover
The bakery's milk and its cream as two lines on one bill, each in litres
Make the milk and the cream two items sold by the litre, each at its own rate. The bakery's morning bill carries both lines with the day, so when the cook says the cans were fewer than you wrote, the two lines are already on the cook's phone.
Each farmer's page with the cans that are out against him
Count the steel can as an item of its own. Note each can that goes home with a farmer and each that returns, with the day. The cans that are out are a number, not a guess, and the farmer who is a can short is the one who sees it first. When he asks how many cans he has with you, the number is on the screen in a moment, and no one raises a voice.
The society's cans and the cans from outside are settled on separate pages
A booth here buys from the producer society, and some mornings the milk comes from further off, from Tamil Nadu or Karnataka. Give the society and each outside supplier a page of their own, and note every can on it, in litres, with its day. At the settlement you pay each supplier from his own list, and the society's cans are never lost in one total with the milk brought in from outside.
Cattle at Puducherry and Yanam: the herds behind the milk booth
Milk comes from the cattle of the people around the booth, and those people are in the fields as much as in the town.
- Most people in the Puducherry region farm, rear animals or fish for a living, while the educated work in industries and service jobs.
- Farmers in Yanam grow paddy, coconut, groundnut and pulses, and fishing and animal rearing are important side incomes.
Why a Puducherry milk booth counts a litre three times: at the farmer, the counter and the house
The bakery down the lane that takes milk and cream by the can
A bakery or a sweet shop nearby takes milk and cream in cans, not in litres for the house. The quantity changes with its bake, the can goes out early, and the account is settled at the month's end. The bakery's cook says the cans were fewer than you wrote, and you have only the can count in your head.
The farmer's cans that go home and do not come back
Each farmer who brings milk takes his empty can home and is supposed to bring it back next morning. Some cans do not return for days, and a booth that is short of cans cannot take the next farmer's milk. Nobody has counted how many cans are out. On a busy morning two farmers arrive at once and one is turned away for want of a can.
The farmer says every can he sent was good
At the month's end the litres you were sent and the litres you sold are not the same, and the farmer says every can he sent was good. You know a can or two did not go over the counter, but there is no line for them. His word and yours are all there is, and the next morning he brings his cans as before.
Questions a Puducherry milk seller asks about daily litres, skipped days and curd
Can the phone work out what I should pay a farmer for the fat in his milk?
No. It does not test milk or price it by fat. The litres each farmer brought go on his page with the day, and the rate you pay is yours to set.
A French-quarter guest house takes cans and curd every morning and pays at the month's end. How do I keep its page?
Give it a page of its own. Each morning's cans and tubs of curd are billed when they go out, and the page shows the month line by line, ready to send on WhatsApp.
The farmer says he sent ten litres in the can, and my jug shows nine and a half. Which do I note?
Note the litres you measured on his page the day the can arrives. The page keeps your figure with the day, so when he says ten you read the nine and a half with him and agree the number once.
A milk plan, a falling collection and a gap filled from outside
Puducherry's 2024 plan targets procuring 2.34 crore litres of milk from co-operative milk producer societies, with a 75% cattle-feed subsidy through the Pondicherry Co-operative Milk Producer's Union. For a booth, that is a sign of how much of the territory's milk the societies are meant to bring in.
A 2013 study found that milk procurement by the Pondicherry milk producers union (PONLAIT) fell from 60,000 to 35,000 litres a day over the years, linked to high feed cost and low procurement price. A booth that buys from farmers can note which of them stopped bringing milk and from which month, so a falling collection is read in names and not as one number.
In May 2025 Puducherry's Chief Minister said the territory needs 1.2 lakh litres of milk daily against 60,000 litres produced locally, with the gap filled from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. So a booth in Puducherry sells milk from near and from far, and the litres that arrive each morning are worth noting where they came from.