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BANKING TRADE AND COMMERCE
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RETAIL TRADE
A considerable expansion has been witnessed in the volume
and direction of retail trade during the past few years. In rural
areas where the populace mainly depended for its purchases on weekly bazars and fairs, a number of retail shops have sprung up recently, at least in big villages, dealing in groceries, cloth, pan-bidi, etc.
As per the Census of 1951, 11,316 persons were engaged in retail trade. According to 1961 Census the number rose by 30.70 per cent, the total number of persons engaged in retail trade being 14,792. Of these 7,548 were in urban areas and 7,244 were in rural areas.
Pedlars and Hawkers.
Pedlars are the traders who travel from village to village mostly during the fair season carrying a variety of articles, such as, groceries, fruits and vegetables, ice-candies, spices, ready-made clothes, saris, khans, tea, bread, biscuits, sweet-meats, etc., either on their person or in bullock-carts, on horses, on bicycles or four wheel carriers. They sell their goods on cash basis or against agricultural produce to their customers whom they know intimately. They usually purchase their stock-in-trade from merchants at all the market places and mostly from the merchants at tahsil and district headquarters or nearby towns or big villages.
The number of pedlars is available for only two tahsils of the district. In Yeotmal tahsil, the approximate number of pedlars was put at between 400 and 500. They usually carried their
goods on bicycles and four wheel carriers and sold cloth, stationery articles, kerosene oil, sweet-meats, vegetables, fruits, carpets, toys, crockery, etc. They purchased their stock-in-trade mostly from Yeormal.
The number of pedlars in Darwha tahsil was put at between
200 and 250. They carried their goods mostly in bullock-carts
and on horsebacks. Their stock-in-trade mostly comprised
stationery articles ready-made clothes, grains and sweet-meats. etc., and was purchased from the merchants at Darwha and Digras.
Though the information was available only for two tahsils, it showed the general trend regarding pedlars and the business they carried on in the district.
Hawkers are to the towns what pedlars are to the villages. The counterpart of pedlars in rural areas, the hawkers in the urban areas play an important part in the retail trade of the district. The hawking system prevails in almost all the municipal towns though in varying degrees. They move from place to place hawking their merchandise. They carry their goods either on their person or on handcarts or on bicycles. The goods sold by them include fruits and vegetables, sprouted pulses, bread, biscuits, eggs, sweet-meats, dry fruits, ice-candies, ice-creams and sharbats, etc.
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