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Dabba Walas in Mumbai

Mumbai Dabbawalas

Those who get up early and leave for their offices in a hurry as they have to make long journeys. In this chaos, they miss out on homemade meals. Moreover, due to long distances it becomes impossible for them to come home for lunch every day.  The solution to this problem is provided by Mumbai Dabbawalas.

Mumbai Dabbawalas are a group of people who carry freshly prepared food from customer’s home or sometimes from a caterer in lunch-boxes and then deliver those to their offices by lunch time.  These lunch-boxes are then collected and sent back either the same day or next day. These dabbawalas in huge crowd as they wear plain white cotton attire with a Gandhi cap and carry a number of lunchboxes. In order to deliver these dabbas on time, they rely heavily on trains and bicycles for commuting.

The city’s railway network plays a very important role in the success of this model as it is a very reliable, convenient and affordable mode of transportation.  Every day nearly 5,000 dabbawalas work efficiently and deliver these lunch-boxes to over 2, 00,000 people living in and around Mumbai. 

They are famous for their excellent organizational skills. The best part is that they are accurate in making the deliveries and never fail.  Mumbai Dabbawalas are rate as six-sigma by Forbes Magazine, which means the chance of making mistakes is once in six million deliveries. It is due to their team work and proper time management that they are able to work without any flaws.

Dabba wala

Earlier, there were only 2-3 ladies who were working in this field. But now their number has increased to more than 20-25. They are referred to as “lunch-box ladies”.   The business of these dabbawalas is driven by people and not technology. The dedication, commitment and sincerity they show towards their work is the only reason for the success of their business which started almost 125 years back. 

There is a charitable trust registered under the name of Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier’s Association in 1968 whose current president is Mr. Raghunath Medge. Nowadays, these dabbawalas have started taking orders from people through sms. Therefore, it has become very convenient for the people to feast on home cooked food.

Mumbai Dabbawalas have become so much famous that recently a movie named “The Lunchbox” was released in India. A documentary has also been made on them based on the theme of Dabba Delivery System.  Their excellence in the operations made them favorite among Prince Charles and Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic. Prince Charles even invited them to their wedding which was held in London on 9th April 2005. 

These dabbawalas are also invited to many top management schools in India to give guest lectures so that they can tell the students about their wonderful management skills.

Read More: Best Food Joints for College Students in MumbaiAbout Mumbai, Cooking Classes in Mumbai

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