Hridhay Kanodia: A Doon School Student Builds A Digital Backbone For The City's Kirana Stores

Hridhay Kanodia is a Class 12 student at The Doon School and the founder behind RetailLens, software designed to help kirana stores manage their daily operations. Built around the needs of local shopkeepers, the platform is now being taken up in his hometown of Bathinda, where traditional grocery businesses are beginning to explore digital tools.

Growing up In Bathinda

Hridhay was born and raised in Bathinda, one of Punjab's oldest cities and a market town that once commanded the route between Delhi and Multan. Its busy bazaars and closely connected trading community formed the backdrop to his early years.

His father is an entrepreneur whose businesses stretch across the state, so Hridhay grew up around commerce and the everyday workings of business. The bazaars of his city would later give him his biggest project, bringing together his interest in technology and his familiarity with the world of trade.

Finding A Problem At Home

In 2025, Hridhay turned his attention back to Bathinda. Most of its grocery stores still kept their books by hand, while pitches from big software companies had gone nowhere. He began standing beside shop counters in Gandhi Market, one of the city's biggest commercial hubs, watching how business gets done, before working his way across Bathinda.

It was slow going. Older shopkeepers were in no hurry to explain their trade to a schoolboy, and it took many return visits before they began to open up. Their concerns were practical: a busy shop leaves little time for complicated systems, lengthy training or processes that interrupt a sale. What Hridhay gathered set the rules for the product. Anything that adds a step at the counter will not survive a busy day.

The shopkeepers then became his testers. He took their blunt feedback, rebuilt what slowed them down and returned with RetailLens, a single screen where a shopkeeper can ring up sales, check shelves, place orders with suppliers and send updates over WhatsApp. The software keeps running when the internet drops and is simple enough to use from day one. Its design reflects the way neighbourhood stores already work, rather than asking them to change their routines around a new system.

Recognition

The Bathinda Beopar Mandal, which speaks for the city's shopkeepers, had never before been approached by a schoolboy with an answer to its members' troubles. It has since honoured Hridhay with the Vyapar Mitra Samman 2026, a recognition that places his work alongside the concerns of the local trading community.

Since September 2026, the Mandal has begun taking RetailLens to its member shops and is in the first stages of a wider rollout. If it goes the distance, his work will sit behind some 3,000 neighbourhood stores and the 70,000-odd homes they supply, bringing everyday retail operations closer to a digital system.

Looking Ahead

Hridhay is now working on RetailLens's next feature, one that looks at what sold last Diwali, last monsoon and last week to help a shop decide what to order next. The aim is to make sales history useful for planning purchases, managing stock and anticipating customer demand.

Still in school, he has already learnt what many founders take years to learn: the best tools are built with the people who will use them. For Hridhay, the starting point was not a boardroom or a business plan, but the counters of Bathinda's kirana stores.