Cutting Off the Middle-Man

"While selling my produce to the distributor, I earn a margin of only about 10%"

The aam papad business is one of the many cottage industries in the Kangra district. Jagdev Singh owns a small aam-papad stall in Kotla- a small village on the Dharamshala-Pathankot border. He exports a majority of his produce to villages in south India, catering to small orders. Once the produce is ready in August, he also has wholesale buyers who come down to Kotla, pick up the produce and transport it themselves. This happens in case Jagdev does not have the bandwidth to transport larger orders.

A major challenge he faces is the lack of a cold storage facility in the area. This leads to excessive mango wastage. He also does not have any autonomy on the distribution of his produce which, in turn, compels him to compromise on his mark-up.

He owns a Xiaomi-RedMi and uses Whatsapp and Facebook extensively for entertainment. He has also started using Hotstar, mainly to watch cricket matches. He uses the SBI and PNB apps for net banking.

Although Jagdev is a producer of a highly demanded local produce, he is unable to obtain the right price for his make, given his severe limitations on the distribution range.