Okhla Mandi

aroy

Senior Member
Mandi is Hindi word for whole sale market. Okhla Mandi is the nearest Fruit and Vegetable Mandi to our house. There are three major Mandi in Delhi and they deal in bulk, semi-bulk and retail.

I will break this up into parts so that it does not get too long.

Okhla Mandi 1 : General View

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Platform scale

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Fruit sellers at the entry

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Tomato bulk sellers - baskets of around 30kg are auctioned here. Approximate price Rs.150/basket.

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People milling around

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Fruit carts

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View through a stall

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Watermelons - bulk sales, minimum quantity 100kg

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Fruit sellers - bulk and semi retail

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Overview

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Fruit retailer

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Fruit retailer

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Fruit retailer
 

aroy

Senior Member
Okhla Mandi 2 : Vegetables

Individual vegetable lots are shown here. There are three types of lots
- Bulk : Sold in cartons or bags. Usually varies from 30kg for tomatoes to 100kg for potatoes.
- Semi-bulk : loose in 5kg or multiples of it
- Retail : minimum of 1kg for vegetables and 1/4 for spices

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Tomatoes - bulk sale cartons

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Tomato alley. Semi-bulk and retail sales

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Close up of tomatoes

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Tori - Sponge gourd

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Round brinjals

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Cauliflower

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Pumpkin in fore ground and bottle gourd in back ground

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Lauki - Bottle gourd

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Bottle gourd - packaged in 10kg lots

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Parwal - Pointed gourd

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Bhindi - Ladies finger

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Beans

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Cucumber

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Spice seller - Chillies, lemon, garlic and ginger

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Shoppers selecting spices

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Coriander leaves

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lemons

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Garlic

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Sanjan - drum sticks
 
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aroy

Senior Member
Okhla Mandi 3 : Fruits

Fruits are also sold in bulk or retails
- Bulk : units of 100kg
- Semi-bulk : units of 5kg
- Retails : 1kg or more

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Bel - Bengal quince. Inner pulp made into cooling drink for summer.

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Watermelon bulk seller

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Oranges. These are quite small but juicy. Mostly bought by road side juice sellers.

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Bulk orange seller - by cart loads. You can see his truck standing.

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Pineapples - they come by truck from North Eastern India, a journey of 2000 kilometers.

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Promenades

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Fruit stall

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Papaya

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Semi ripe papaya are harvested and covered with newspaper to ripen.

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Musk Mellon

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Apricots - these come from hills

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Plums in cartons

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My wife buying coconuts
 

aroy

Senior Member
Okhla Mandi 4 : Portraits

Where ever you go with a camera, people want their photo taken, in the hope that it will be published some where. Here are some "models"

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Helper to the fruit seller

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Vegetable sellers

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Odd job boy. Wanted to show his skills.

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Potato whole sellers

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Smile please!

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Retail fruit sellers. That is the cart where they have arranged the mangoes bought in the Mandi. They will be hawking their wares on the streets of Delhi for the whole day.
 

aroy

Senior Member
Okhla Mandi 5 : Retailers

And now the buyers consolidating their purchases out side the Mandi. They either have their own carts, or they share a ride in the trucks to their shops.



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Purchases lying all around.

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Those who have carts are loading them up

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General view

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Fruit seller

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Fruit seller on his way to the buyers
 

Daniel Aegerter

Senior Member
Thank you for the insight into your world.
Even though I've been to Delhi (and some other Indian cities), it was always for business purposes and I did not have time to seen anything like that.
 
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