Billing and udhaar for every shop in Uttarakhand
The hill family's udhaar and the visitor's cash sale go on one phone, not two notebooks.
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Where an Uttarakhand counter loses count: the blocked road, Harela week and the visitor's rush
A family walks down for the week's bag, and the slide has held your goods
A slide or a night of snow holds the truck for a day or two, and the sugar, oil and soap the family came for were on it. You learn how little is left only when you reach into the empty carton. The family that walked down from its village for the week's bag is at the counter, and it must walk back up with half a bag.
Seeds, small pots and the week of Harela
Around Harela, when families plant saplings at home and in the field, seeds, pots, tools and manure leave the shelf together. The same customers ask for a little on udhaar until the season's money comes. The week is short, and a rate written wrong on one item stays wrong on every bill that day.
The visitor pays now, the hill family pays later
On a road where visitors stop, one buys a bottle of water, a cap and a packet of biscuits, pays and is gone. The family from the next village takes the month's ration and will pay after the harvest. The drawer and the notebook are both right, and neither shows you the whole day.
Almora wool, Tehri jute and Kotdwar electronics: the shops of Uttarakhand by district
Every district in Uttarakhand trades in its own way. Here are a few, and what each is known for.
- Almora town makes copperware and woolen goods like shawls and carpets, and a Ministry of Textiles marketing and service centre operates there.
- Tehri Garhwal's district handicraft page lists jute products made by women's self-help groups, such as braided shopping bags, door mats, fruit baskets and yoga slippers.
- Jauljibi and Thal fairs in Pithoragarh district are mainly trade fairs, and woollen goods and Doka baskets are local crafts.
- Kotdwar in Pauri Garhwal hosts a Bharat Electronics Limited unit making telecommunication and military communication systems.
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From last winter's empty shelf to the family that pays after harvest
The order that must leave before the first snow
Before the first snow the road is still open, and that is when the order has to leave. Oil, matches and candles are the goods you cannot get once the road is cut. In October the shopkeeper reads the count of all three and sends one order for them together, while the lorry can still climb.
Bags and cylinders for the dhaba, kept apart from family udhaar
On a hill road the dhaba, the school kitchen and the guest house take flour and oil by the bag and gas by the cylinder. The lorry climbs once, and what is not on it does not come. Each lot is counted in bags and cylinders, each at its own rate, so the road decides how many you order.
Warm goods before the snow, cold drinks after it
A hill shop sells sweaters, caps and blankets in one half of the year and cold drinks and fans in the other. Count each as its own item, and the last blankets are not found in the godown in June with the cold drinks stacked in front of them, and the last fans are not found there in December.
What helps a shop where the wholesaler is a long road away
Low stock warnings
Shows the oil, salt and candles that are running out before the road can shut, not after.
Orders to suppliers
The order goes from your phone to the supplier in the plains, and when the truck finally gets through you note what arrived.
Godown stock
The godown in the town and the shop on the slope counted apart, and added together when you place an order.
Sell to other businesses
The dhaba and the school kitchen apply to buy from you on credit, and you choose who is given it.
The hill entrepreneurs of the Rural Business Incubator who went online
What shop owners on the Uttarakhand hill roads ask before they start
A family takes seeds and small pots for Harela and pays when its own season's money comes. Whose name does the page carry?
The name the family is known by in the lane. Put the seeds and pots on a page under that name, so whoever stands at the counter next finds the same page.
In Harela week seeds and small pots go together. How do I know by noon which will run short?
Read the count of the seeds and of each size of pot at noon. In a short week they go together, and the one with the fewest left at noon is the one to send for first.
A slide holds the supplier's truck for three days. Which of my goods must I not promise?
The goods whose count will not last three days at the pace you sell. Do not promise those to a customer. Say how many days of them you hold, tell the customers early, and order again the day the road opens.
What the plains and the hills of Uttarakhand make and grow
Haridwar's industry centres on the SIIDCUL industrial estate and BHEL's two plants, which make large turbines, generators, castings and forgings. A shop near works like these may find that families who draw a monthly pay settle their account once a month.
The Dehradun district site says the area is known for special Basmati rice, tea and litchi gardens. A shop there stocks rice from fields close by, and the litchi weeks bring a rush of their own.
Udham Singh Nagar is an agro-industrial district: agriculture-based industry is found in every block and tehsil, and SIDCUL estates at Pantnagar and Sitarganj host other industries. Where farms and factories share a district, a shop serves farm families by the season and factory families by the month, and keeps the two kinds of credit apart.