Sales of state cooperative stores up in Gurgaon

Sales at stores of state-owned cooperatives in Gurgaon such as Mother Dairy and Safal, Kendriya Bhandar, Vita and Haryana Fresh have reported an increase since November 9. These stores have been accepting the demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes and residents are eager to exhaust their supply of the old notes.

At the city’s two Kendriya Bhandar stores at Jal Vayu Tower and Kendriya Vihar in Sector 56, residents have been stocking up on months of provisions. One such resident of Jal Vayu Tower, Anu Gulati, said she brought three months’ supply of flour, wheat, pulses and sugar for Rs. 15,000.

“There is no point standing in queues outside banks for hours to exchange defunct currency. Stocking up on ration was a convenient option since these are non-perishable goods and can always be utilised,” Gulati said.

Rishi Mathur, the official spokesperson of Kendriya Bhandar, confirmed the increase in sales due to people stocking up on rations.

On an average, the Kendriya Vihar store had daily sales of Rs. 80,000 and the Jal Vayu Tower store of Rs. 45,000. Now, the two stores have cumulatively seen an increase of 80-100% in sales, he said. The Kendriya Vihar store is now doing business of Rs. 1.5 lakh daily and Jal Vayu Tower store of Rs. 80,000.

Similarly, officials of Mother Dairy, which has 29 milk booths and 22 Safal outlets in the city, said that milk and Safal booths in Gurgaon had average sales of over Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 15,000 per day respectively.

While the sales of milk have increased by only 3%, they said sales of vegetables and fruits at Safal outlets have jumped 10%.

“There have been many reports of people visiting the Mother Dairy and Safal stores to get change, which has been a hassle. Hence, most booths are being equipped with digital wallet (Paytm service) and SBI SmartChange cards (rechargeable smart cards),” said Sandeep Ghosh, business head (milk), Mother Dairy.

Haryana Fresh, which supplies farmers’ produce directly to consumers by removing intermediaries and hence bringing down costs and logistics, has one outlet at Nirvana Country in Sector 50 that did an average daily business of Rs. 8,000.

Now, officials at the outlet have reported a 3-4% jump in sales and said they were accepting the old notes if the total bill was divisible by Rs. 500 or Rs.1,000. However, they said the outlet was not handing out loose change.

“Two of my neighbours and I shop there for daily groceries. The three of us ensure that the bill comes to Rs. 1,000 and we adjust our spending and procuring accordingly,” said Kala Srinivasan of Sector 50.

Like Mother Dairy, milk sales haven’t been affected much at state-owned Vita Dairy too. Jai Vir Singh, sales manager, said that while sales of most milk products have remained the same, that of ghee (clarified butter) have witnessed a threefold increase over the past week.