(Image source from: thenewsminute.com)

There’s a stall in Vankulathuvayal, in Azhikode, Kannur, in the absence of any supervision and is open to people. One can walk into the shop, check the products on sale, choose any you like and leave your payment in a box.

A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Janashakti Trust on January 1 opened such a stall in the village, giving it a name Pratheeksha Self Counter. And guess what, there has been no theft report till date.

When the stall was opened, it had average sales of Rs 1,000 a day, at present, it’s about Rs 750 a day.

“Every 10 days we check the accounts, there has never been any loss,” says Sukunan of Janashakti Trust as cited by The News Minute.

The NGO has been there for a while - since 1978 - Sukunan says. Originally the NGO was founded as a literacy mission to teach people how to read and write. But as years went by, it turned out to be a place that bought medicines for the really sick and sent volunteers as carers for patients who had none.

“We were engaged in taking medicines worth Rs 1,000 a month for each of the bedridden persons. We knew that some of them were capable of making home products such as soap and washing powder. But they didn’t have a way to market it,” Sukunan says.

Earlier, the NGO had run an ambulance service for the ailing persons they cared for, taking no money when it is a seriously ill person, and leaving a donation box when it was for transferring a dead body.

“The ambulance service received a lot of positive response. That’s when we thought we could use the same idea for a shop that would sell the products made by the people who couldn’t move without someone’s help,” Sukunan says.

The mastermind behind the idea was Khaleel, who was working for 23 years in a Gulf country as a painter but since then he had a fall and a back injury, he was bedridden. But it didn’t put him down mentally, Sukunan says. Even in his condition, he makes such nice soaps of different kinds, washing powder and other cleaning detergents that villagers often buy from him. Sukunan and team thought that they could keep products made by Khaleel and others like him in a shop and keep a box in there for people to pay for whatever they bought.

“We thought there was no point keeping someone to run the shop till we knew if the idea would work. And we trust each other in this village. A vegetable vendor called Sadanandan opens and closes the shop every day, the same time he opens and shuts his own shop. Nobody asked him to, he is just doing it on his own,” Sukunan says.

Sadanandan also went ahead and fixed one of his own CCTV cameras at the unmanned shop. Not that it was needed there.

“We have now received another product from a man called Joymon, who was injured while doing masonry work. He has made some 20 knives. We are not sure if it is a good idea to keep the knives at an unmanned shop and are waiting for a decision,” Sukunan says.

According to The News Minute, the stall now sells products from five people, wheelchair bound or bedridden. Apart from Khaleel, there is Subaida, who has not been able to walk since birth, there is wheelchair-bound Sukumaran, there is Vinod who endured a leg injury playing a football game, and persons with disablement belonging to Ashreya home. Cleansing agents, washing powders, skirts, candles, coconut shell spoons, and paper pens are for sale at the store.

-Sowmya Sangam