At a neighborhood kirana store, regular customers often buy on credit, udhaar. The shopkeeper writes the amount in a ledger, the bahi khata, and the customer pays later. Khatabook, an app founded for “replicating India’s bahi khata, or book of accounts,” reported “over 10 million monthly active users” in 2021.
Business Today asked shopkeepers how they get neighbors to pay their dues. One of them, Sushil Tripathi, explained why he does not press: “They might get offended if we ask them to pay the dues and move to another kirana store.”