MISCELLANEOUS OCCUPATIONS

PAN AND BIDI SHOPS

Pan and bidi shops are found in all towns and villages except those with a very small populace. Some of the shops are merely extensions of hotels and restaurants while others carry business independently. A large number of these are usually situated at the busy centres of towns or villages. The existence of innumerable pan and bidi shops in the urban and rural parts of the country demonstrates clearly how, with the passage of time, habits develop into inseparable accidents. Only a few decades before, an establishment of this category was difficult to come across, though to-day these shops have sprung up to cater to the needs of the ever increasing class of customers with whom chewing pan and smoking are becoming a part of the routine life. Whatever pundits may say about the wrongs and rights accompanying these habits, the individual does seem to derive an excessive pleasure in chewing a pan or in allowing, in the curling smoke puffs, his imagination to run riot. However, excessive consumption of pan or bidi further aggravated by a bad quality of this stuff, has eschewed its benevolence, if any. The unstunted growth of pan and bidi shops in recent years has only brought into limelight a gradual change in the habits of the people. Except to the extent it may have brought a few heads within the scope of employment, it has not responded to the economic advance of the community since the occupation has certainly not contributed materially to the wealth of the country. The following table gives a broad idea of employment provided by this occupation during the last sixty years:—

The above figures include, besides employment at pan and bidi shops, a number of other heads such as dealers in tobacco, manufacturers of tobacco, etc., and give us only a rough picture of employment provided by pan, bidi and other allied occupations.

A sample survey of a few representative establishments was conducted. At the time of the survey, there were thirty establishments at Mahad, distributed as under: —

* No occupational statistics are available for these years.

† The figure does not cover the district fully. It excludes employment in the Janjira State, the same being not obtainable in the Census of 1921.

The object of visiting a few shop of different sizes was to obtain a broad picture indicating the position of the occupation in respect of raw materials, tools and equipment, state of labour, etc. An account of our observations is given in what follows.

Accessories,

Of the raw materials, betel-leaves are purchased from local agents, whereas tobacco, betel-nut, lime or chunam, catechu or kath, etc., are usually bought from retail dealers. Different quality bidis are ordered from distributing agents who very often visit pan-bidi shops and supply them bidis in the required quantities. Broadly speaking, bidis made of temburni leaves and manufactured at Mahad, in a large measure, and elsewhere in the district on a petty scale, have a familiar market at almost all the parts of the district. Naturally, bidi-shops too are found to keep them in fairly large stocks. Yet, a few shops purchase temburni leaves, tobacco, thread, etc., and, with the assistance of one or few persons, manufacture bidis by themselves. In a few cases, the shops keep sundry accessories including postal cards, envelopes, inlands, postage and revenue stamps, match-boxes, soaps, scented sticks or agarbattis and in fact stock a number of similar articles whose price may be small indeed and yet whose utility in the routine life of the customers cannot be dispensed with. It is difficult to assess the extent of the value of purchases made by the shops, as the same will depend on the scope of products they may keep for sale. Thus, a number of pan-bidi shops are found to sell betel-leaves, betel-nut, catechu, chunam, bidis, cigarettes, snuff, etc., to the customers and the extent of monthly purchases made by such shops can be said to run usually from worth Rs. 200 to Rs. 400 and even more. In rare cases, of course, such shops keep lime and coriander too for sale. Thus, what is typical about these shops is that in the initial stage they confine their activity to the sale of betel-leaves, betel-nut, catechu, etc., but later they are found to extend over to a wide range of articles as aforesaid. Another type of pan-bidi shop is found selling pan along with sundry accessories and, being small in size, has its scope restricted more or less to its original character. The purchases made by it are small and found to range from Rs. 75 to Rs. 200 per month.

Tools and Equipment.

The tools required in this occupation include nut-cutters, both small and big, balances to weigh betel-nut, snuff, etc., containers to stuff the stocks of varied articles, chunam pot with a rod, china jars and similar other things necessary for the purpose. A few shops are found to be closely adjacent to the residential accommodation of the proprietor and very often a wooden partition seems to break it into two apartments, the small one usually facing the road-side being allowed to operate as a shop. Everywhere in the district the shops are so small that they do not leave any space for the provision of furniture nor does the nature of occupation demand any costly installation, of furniture. Yet, there is no dearth of decoration at these shops which are found to be equipped with mirrors, pictures, photo-frames, etc. At big towns in the district, a few shops are maintained up-to-date and well-equipped with modern amenities common among them being a radio-set and a tube-light. The amount absorbed in tools and equipment differs in response to the size of the shop. A majority of shops in the district have a small size and are possessed with tools and equipment worth hardly beyond Rs. 200. In a few big shops of the type, however, the investment on tools and equipment is much more and varies between Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000.

Capital.

The pan-bidi establishment requires no capital other than that required in the purchases of a few tools and equipment. Furthermore, the nature of business does not involve a lock-up of capital, as most of the volume of business is effected on a cash basis. On the other hand, the incumbents of the occupation are very often found to maintain accounts with retail dealers or distributing agents, as the case may be, from whom they may buy their supplies of requisite material. As capital is not locked up, the instances of borrowings are rare and, even where they exist, they are small in amounts which can be re-paid without difficulty. Thus, our sample survey revealed that the amount of debt per indebted family averaged to the tune of a hundred rupees and that friends and relatives provided a common source of borrowings.

Labour.

The establishment, of the kind does not provide employment to a large number of people. It is a common sight to find that it is operated by the owner himself usually unassisted by paid employees. The nature of business justifies its conduct on a small scale and the owner alone can manage the entire business. Where of course the shop also undertakes to make bidis by itself, it is found to employ a few persons on a piece-meal basis. The labourer, in such cases, makes on an average 400 bidis a day, thereby earning a little more than thirteen annas, the rate of payment in the region being two rupees per thousand bidis as per the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. The shops work for long hours extending from 8 a.m. to 7-30 p.m. although at a few places of heavy traffic, they open early in the morning and work till 9 p.m. Usually, a number of establishments which are but extensions of hotels and restaurants do not appear to have hours of work independent of those of the main units, although hotels and restaurants and pan-bidi shops may not necessarily come under the same management.

Turnover.

Apart from such units as are engaged in the production of bidis and which number few in the district, the establishments in general do not produce anything except pans of different qualities such as ordinary, special, etc. The units of the type are more or less retail dealers, buying a number of items on a large scale and retailing them in such proportions as may be demanded by the clientele. What particularly appeals to the observer is that the shop is found to serve a large number of customers, though in aggregate this may not lead to increase the volume of sales ostensibly due to the fact that every transaction contributes a small amount towards the turnover. It is not infrequently that especially at small villages in the district, a transaction may account for much less than an anna and, even in the big towns, the smallest item is the pan which fetches only a fraction of an anna. Yet, the total turnover does not appear to be unwarrantably small. It averages from Rs. 5 to almost five times as much a day. The net margin earned by the incumbents of the occupation, as revealed by our sample survey, ranged from Rs. 75 to Rs. 400 per month. The income appears to be fairly satisfactory, probably because apart from the expenditure incurred on purchases of the material, there remains hardly anything to be spent on items such as labour, establishment charges, etc. Rent was found to be a major item in establishment charges and ranged from Rs. 7 to Rs. 25 per month. As compared to the tiny space in which the shop is usually housed, the amount of rent perhaps appears to be much more than what it is due. Yet, shopkeepers are willing to pay a higher rent for a favourable location. If the shop is attached to a hotel or a restaurant, it is but natural that the customers of the latter should be attracted to the former. Similarly, the situation of the shop near a cinema theatre or in a bazaar or any public place justifies a higher rent.

It appears that the occupation is not unremunerative and that, being simple in nature, it does not involve any risk of speculation. Nevertheless, the class of educated people does not seem to have taken to it, probably because it has not as yet come to be regarded as a respectable occupation. With the passage of time, however, a few factors that favour the occupation, viz., tidy size of the establishment, small capital requirements, absence of a lock-up of investment and, lastly, ease and safety of operation can be expected to attract even the class of educated people to it. Furthermore, as chewing pan and smoking are becoming more common among the people day by day, there are no grounds to imagine that the growth of this occupation will be obstacled in future.

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