Billing for your dairy and milk shop in Uttarakhand
Milk by the litre, paneer by the quarter kilo and the family's monthly account, all on one phone.
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Tea gardens, works canteens and farm districts: who buys milk in Uttarakhand
A dairy sells to whoever the district sends in. Here are a few districts and who they send.
- The Dehradun district site says the area is known for special Basmati rice, tea and litchi gardens. Tea is made with milk, and a tea stall is a dairy's steadiest morning customer.
- Haridwar's industry centres on the SIIDCUL industrial estate and BHEL's two plants, which make large turbines, generators, castings and forgings. Works canteens near these plants need milk, curd and paneer for their kitchens.
- 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.
From the keeper's can at six to the chhach that sells in the hot weeks
The keeper who walks down at five with two steel cans
He pours at the counter and is gone before the shutter is half up, so the litres are written as he pours and not after. By the time the first family is on the steps, the milk is already in your stock with his name beside it.
Chhach in the hot weeks, ghee and khoya in the cold: one shelf, two seasons
Chhach sells by the glass in the hot weeks, and ghee and khoya in the cold weeks and before festivals. What the shelf holds in July is not what it holds in January. Put more chhach and less ghee on the shelf when the heat comes, and turn it round in the cold.
Khoya and butter for the halwai, from the union's range, promised once
A few days before a festival the halwai next door asks for more khoya and butter. The stock count shows what is left of each, so you do not promise the same khoya twice, and you ask the union in time.
When the packet's rate moves, the hill can arrives at dawn and the paneer cannot wait
The packet's rate rises and the customer asks about the loose milk
The state dairy federation raised Aanchal milk by Rs 2 a litre, citing costlier packaging. Most Aanchal is consumed in the plains districts, and only three districts got the rise first. A shop that sells packets and loose milk hears the question at the counter the same morning: will the loose milk go up too?
The can comes up the hill road at dawn, before the shop is open
The milkman fills his cans at first light and carries them up the hill road by bicycle. By the time you open the shutter the first families are waiting. The litres in the can, the litres sold and the litres left in the bucket are three numbers, and only one of them was written down. On a cold morning he will not wait, and on a rainy one he comes late, and the shop has no way of saying how much milk it lost.
The cooperative's packets on the rack, the paneer on a tray at the counter
Packets from the cooperative sit on the rack and keep for a day or two. The paneer on the tray at the counter is gone by evening, and the ghee in its jar lasts for weeks. You decide what to cut the rate on from the look of the shelf, and nobody can say afterwards how much paneer went on the last evening.
Tools for a counter that sells milk, curd, paneer and ghee, each on its own clock
Orders to suppliers
Your order to the dairy depot for packets, and a note of what came in the vehicle, so the stock starts from the packets that arrived. Next time the same order starts from what arrived, not from what was promised.
Daily reports
The week after the Aanchal rate rose, packets and loose milk on separate rows, so you read how many families moved from the packet to the loose milk.
Low stock warnings
Shows the packets running low at six in the morning, when the first families are already on the steps.
Questions Uttarakhand dairies ask about cans, packets and the hot weeks
Rain holds the keeper at the top of the hill, and the packets are gone by seven. What can I offer a regular?
Look at both counts at seven, the packets and the loose milk. Tell the regular what is left, and offer curd or paneer from the tray, billed on her page.
The Aanchal rise reached only some districts first. Can the new packet rate and the old loose-milk rate sit apart?
Yes. Change the packet's rate when the rise reaches your district, and leave the loose milk at its own rate. After a week the report shows packets and loose litres side by side, so you see whether customers moved to the can.
Does Bharatrath tell me how fresh the paneer is?
No. It counts what is in stock and what is sold, and nothing about freshness or the day the paneer was made. You still judge the tray by eye, as you do now.
How much milk the cooperatives of Uttarakhand collect
Dairy cooperatives collect milk from about 56,000 livestock keepers in Uttarakhand, around 2.40 lakh litres every day. A dairy shop in a hill town buys from a state where milk comes from many small keepers, each with a few animals, and not from a few large farms.
The Nainital milk union, selling under the Aanchal brand, procures about 80,000 litres a day and makes chhach, paneer, yoghurt, ghee, butter and khoya. That is the range a dairy shop's shelf carries: some sold in a day, some kept for weeks.