Billing for your hardware and paint shop in Tripura
Cement by the bag, rods by the kilo and paint by the litre, on one bill under the contractor's name.
What a hardware shop with a godown and a contractor's account can keep in writing
Low stock warnings
A level for tin sheets, rods and cement, so the roofing fortnight does not empty the godown before the next order is sent.
Daily reports
The garden tools for the plantation workers and the building goods for the masons read apart in the evening, so you see which side paid.
Bills on your phone
The contractor opens the bill on his phone at the mouth of the lane and checks it against his own count of porters before the first load moves.
Cane towns, plantation villages and hill roads: where Tripura's building goes on
Hardware shops in Tripura build with what the towns and the plantations need. Here are three districts, and what their sites say.
- West Tripura's district site says cane and bamboo chairs, tables, mats, hats and bags are exported, and handloom goods are sold at the Purbasha government emporium.
- South Tripura's economy rests on agriculture, animal resources and fisheries: paddy, pineapple, jackfruit and banana are grown, with tea gardens, rubber and bamboo plantations.
- In Dhalai district, 76% of workers depend on agriculture; the district site names poor marketing facilities as a reason for backwardness, though NH 44 connects it.
From the roofing rush before the rains to the house that is built in stages
Each porter's carry is a bill in his own name
Make a bill for each porter's carry, in the porter's name, with the bags and bars he took and their rate. When the contractor says a different number, the quarrel is with that porter's bill and not with the shop. The count at the site is settled by name.
Bamboo poles left in the lane, and rods for the frame
A house of bamboo and rods needs poles for the frame and rods to hold it, and the poles go out by the dozen in the building weeks. Count the poles by the piece, and at the end of the week you know how many are left in the lane before you send for more.
The roofing fortnight, and a lowest count set for the days a truck takes
Before the roofing fortnight, raise the lowest count for tin sheets to cover the days a truck takes to reach you. When the count falls to that number the sheets are on your list while there is still time, and the rods can wait at their own lower number.
Why a Tripura hardware counter cannot add up a bag, a bundle and a tin before the truck leaves
The truck cannot turn into the lane, so the goods are carried by hand and miscounted
On some lanes the truck stops at the main road, and the bags and bars are carried the rest of the way by porters. Each porter says how many he took, the contractor says another number, and the count at the site does not match the count at the shop. By evening the difference is a quarrel.
Bamboo poles for the scaffold and iron rods for the frame sit on one list, counted two different ways
A house going up in Tripura often needs both: bamboo poles for the scaffold, counted by the pole, and iron rods for the frame, counted by the kilo. The list mixes them in the contractor's own handwriting. At the counter the poles are counted twice and the rods are weighed once, and the bill is made from a paper that is gone by evening.
Nails, screws and bolts are weighed into twists of paper and nobody writes them down
Small hardware sells by weight and by count, in twists of newspaper. A kilo of nails, a handful of bolts, two dozen screws: each is small money, and together they are a good share of the day. The scale is the only record, and the scale forgets.
Questions Tripura hardware and paint shops ask
Bamboo poles for scaffolding are sold by length and thickness. Can each be its own item?
Yes. Name each by its length and thickness, set its rate, and sell it by the piece. A customer who asks for the long thick poles is answered from the phone, and the poles that finish first show up in the report.
I sell axes, sickles and hoes for plantation workers along with building material. Can they be read apart?
Yes. Every tool is an item like any other. The evening report shows the tool lines and the building lines, one after the other, so you can see which side of the shop the plantation season is feeding.
A mason wants a tin of paint on the owner's account and a brush on his own. Can one bill carry both?
Make two bills, one under the owner's page and one under the mason's. Both are made in the same minute, and each page holds only what belongs to it.
Concrete homes in place of bamboo tonghars
An older article quotes Tripura's forest minister that 24,000 PMAY and Indira Awas houses were under construction, replacing bamboo-thatch tonghars with concrete or semi-concrete homes by the end of 2018. The figure is old, but it shows what a hardware shop in Tripura sells into: cement, rods and sheets where bamboo and thatch stood.
North Tripura has tea gardens and rubber plantations that give work, besides its paddy and fruit. The garden and plantation workers are among those who come in for tools, pipes and paint, and a hardware shop in the north sells to them as well as to the builders.