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BANKING TRADE AND COMMERCE
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PEDLARS AND HAWKERS
Pedlars and Hawkers.— The 1961 census enumerated 1,789 ped-lars and hawkers in Buldhana district, of whom 1,669 were in urban areas. The hawkers are itinerary traders in towns, while the pedlars are their counterparts in villages. It is noteworthy that though the trading activity of the pedlars is confined to villages, the census enumerated a majority of them in urban areas. This is mainly because of the fact that most of them reside in towns.
The trading activity of these street-vendors is neither regulated nor recorded, and hence the statistics about their trade are not available. They sell a wide variety of consumers goods including fresh fruits, dry fruits, foodgrains, parched grains, spices, vege-tables, bread, biscuits, ice creams, cloth, ready-made garments, stationery and cutlery items, toys, etc. Many of them belong to professional classes, such as oil-men, gardeners, darzis and tin-smiths. They obtain their stock-in-trade from bigger towns like Khamgaon, Shegaon, Buldhana, Malkapur, Chikhali and Deul-gaon. Generally they sell with a narrow profit margin and earn about Rs. 5 to Rs. 10 a day. Some of them sell their goods in exchange for foodgrains. These barter transactions are found on a larger scale in villages.
The pedlars visit the various villages on certain days of the week. They also visit weekly markets and fairs in the nearby villages.
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