Bharat100 #001: the market yard at six in the morning

Bharat100 is a series about one ground problem at a time: the everyday work that keeps a city running, and the friction in it. We start with the problem and the people who solve it every morning. A vehicle comes in only if it helps.

The first is the market yard, the mandi, at six in the morning. The morning below is illustrative. It is put together from how these mornings usually run, not from one named trader.

The quick part and the hard part

By the time most of the city is awake, a fruit and vegetable seller has already done the buying. The yard opens early, the auctions and the bargaining move fast, and for a regular trader the buying can be over in well under an hour.

Then the hard part starts: getting it all from the stalls to the shop. Crates of tomatoes, sacks of onions, bundles of greens, a carton of fruit that bruises if it slides. The shop has to be stocked before the first customers, and greens wilt in the sun.

How the goods move today

A trader usually solves this in one of three ways, and each one is a compromise.

• On a two-wheeler: a crate on the seat, sacks hung on both sides, a bundle between the knees. It works for a small load, but the rider balances everything at every stop, and the greens get crushed.
• By hired vehicle: a goods carrier shared with other traders, or hired for a half-empty trip. It carries plenty, but the trader waits for it, and pays for space the load does not use.
• By hand or handcart, for a shop close to the yard. It costs nothing to run, but it takes several trips and the trader's own time.

None of these is wrong. Each fits some mornings. The problem is the morning in between: too much to balance on two wheels, too little to fill a goods carrier, and too far to walk.

What the morning asks of a vehicle

Before talking about any vehicle, it helps to write down what the job needs. For a trader moving produce from a yard to a shop, the list is short:

1. Short, repeat trips between the yard and the shop, with time to spare before opening.
2. A load measured in tens of kilograms per trip, not hundreds.
3. A closed space, so produce is not crushed, rained on or picked at while the driver is at a stall.
4. A vehicle that stands on its own while it is loaded at the stall and unloaded at the shutter.
5. Charging that does not need anything more than the shop's own socket.

Where CROC EV fits, and where it does not

CROC EV was built for loads in that band. It carries 80 kg a trip, with a 25% overload allowance to 100 kg, in a lockable 380-litre box in front of the driver. It is a reverse trike, two wheels in front and one behind, so it stands on its own at the stall and at the shop.

The range is 40 km on one battery. A shop 3 km from the yard means a 6 km round trip, so even with a few kilometres kept in reserve, one battery covers several trips in a morning. The battery comes out and charges from an ordinary 5 A socket in about 2 hours 30 minutes.

It is not for every trader. Produce is heavy for its size, so the 80 kg payload fills before the box does: plan by kilograms, then check your crates fit. A trader who moves several hundred kilograms in one go needs a bigger vehicle, and saying so plainly is part of Bharat100.

Tell us about your morning

Bharat100 is built from the problems people bring us. If you move produce from a yard to a shop, tell us three things: the distance, how many kilograms you move on a normal morning, and the hardest point of the trip, whether that is the yard gate, a narrow lane or the shop's shutter.

Send them on WhatsApp to UrbanCarriers by Speedloop Auto at +91 86250 40203, or at speedloopauto.com/contact. For more on daily-goods rounds, read milk, water cans and cylinders.