A dabbawala (Marathi: ); also spelled as dabbawalla or dabbawallah; literally meaning "person with a box"), is a person in India, most commonly

found in the city of Mumbai, who is employed in a unique service industry whose primary business is collecting the freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers (mostly in the suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces and returning the empty boxes back to the customer's residence by using various modes of transport. "Tiffin" is an old-fashioned English word for a light lunch or afternoon snack, and sometimes for the box it is carried in. For this reason, the dabbawalas are sometimes called Tiffin Wallahs.
Contents
[hide]

1 Etymology and historical roots

1.1 The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust

2 Supply Chain

o o

2.1 Appearance and coding 2.2 Uninterrupted services

3 Economic analysis

3.1 Awards and recognition

4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit]Etymology

and historical roots

A dabba, or Indian-style tiffin box.

The word "Dabbawala" in Marathi when literally translated, means "one who carries a box". "Dabba" means a box (usually a cylindrical tin or aluminium container), while "wala" is a suffix, denoting a doer or

holder of the preceding word.

[1]

The closest meaning of the Dabbawala in English would be the "lunch box

delivery man". Though this profession seems to be simple, it is actually a highly specialized service in Mumbai which is over a century old and has become integral to the cultural life of this city. The concept of the dabbawala originated when India and Pakistan was under British rule. Many British people who came to the colony did not like the local food, so a service was set up to bring lunch to these people in their workplace straight from their home. Nowadays, although Indian business men are the main customers for the dabbawalas, increasingly affluent families employ them instead for lunch delivery to their school-aged children. Even though the services provided might include cooking, it primarily consists of only delivery either home-made or in that latter case, food ordered from a restaurant. [edit]The

Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust

[2]

This service was originated in 1880. In 1890, Mahadeo Havaji Bachche, started a lunch delivery service with about 100 men. In 1930, he informally attempted to unionize the dabbawallas. Later a charitable

trust was registered in 1956 under the name of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Trust. The commercial arm of this trust was registered in 1968 as Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier's Association. The present President of the association is Sopan Laxman Mare. Nowadays, the service often includes cooking of foods in addition to the delivery. [edit]Supply

Chain

A collecting Dabbawala on a bicycle

Mumbai is a very densely populated city of millions with huge flows of traffic. Because of this, lengthy commutes to workplaces are common, with many workers traveling by train. Instead of going home for lunch or paying for a meal in a caf, many office workers have a cooked meal sent either from their home, or sometimes from a caterer who essentially cooks and delivers the meal in lunch boxes and then have the empty lunch boxes collected and re-sent the same day. This is usually done for a monthly fee. The meal is cooked in the morning and sent in lunch boxes carried by dabbawalas, who have a complex association and hierarchy across the city.

Dabbawalas in action at a Mumbai Suburban Railway station.

A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker's home or from the dabba makers. The dabbas have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a color or symbol. The dabbawala then takes them to a designated sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawalas sort (and sometimes bundle) the lunch boxes into groups. The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). The markings include the rail station to unload the boxes and the building address where the box has to be delivered. At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. The empty boxes, after lunch, are again collected and sent back to the respective houses. [edit]Appearance

and coding

Markings: (1) abbreviations for collection points, (2) colour code for starting station, (3) number for destination station and (4) markings for handling dabbawala at destination, building and floor. [3]

A typical dabbawala lunch.

It is estimated that the dabbawala industry grows by 5-10% each year.

Although the service remains essentially low-tech, with the barefoot delivery men as the prime movers, the dabbawalas have started to embrace technology, and now allow booking for delivery through SMS.
[4]

An on-line poll on the web site ensures that customer feedback is given pride of place.

The success of the system depends on teamwork and time management. Such is the dedication and commitment of the barely literate and barefoot delivery men (there are only a few delivery women) who form links in the extensive delivery chain, that there is no system of documentation at all. A simple colour coding system doubles as an ID system for the destination and recipient. There are no multiple elaborate layers of management either just three layers. Each dabbawala is also required to contribute a minimum capital in kind, in the form of two bicycles, a wooden crate for the tiffins, white cotton kurtapyjamas, and the white trademark Gandhi cap (topi). The return on capital is ensured by monthly division of the earnings of each unit. [edit]Uninterrupted

services

The service is almost always uninterrupted, even on the days of severe weather such as monsoons. The local dabbawalas and population know each other well, and often form bonds of trust. Dabbawalas are generally well accustomed to the local areas they cater to, and use shortcuts and other low profile routes to deliver their goods on time. Occasionally, people communicate between home and work by putting

messages inside the boxes; however, with the rise of instant communication such as SMS and instant messaging, this trend is vanishing. [edit]Economic

analysis

Each dabbawala, regardless of role, gets paid about two to four thousand rupees per month (around 25 50 or US$4080).
[5]

In 2002, Forbes Magazine found its reliability to be that of a six sigma standard. More than 175,000 or 200,000 lunch boxes get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a recent survey, they make less than one mistake in every 6 million deliveries, despite most of the delivery staff being illiterate.
[6]

The BBC has produced a documentary on dabbawalas, and Prince Charles, during his visit to India, visited them (he had to fit in with their schedule, since their timing was too precise to permit any flexibility). Prince Charles also invited them to his wedding with Camilla Parker Bowles in London on 9 April 2005. Owing to the tremendous publicity, some of the dabbawalas were invited to give guest lectures in some of the top business schools of India, which is very unusual. Most remarkably in the eyes of many Westerners, the success of the dabbawala trade has involved no advanced technology , except for trains (and as mentioned above, SMS services for booking). The New York Times reported in 2007 that the 125-year-old dabbawala industry continues to grow at a rate of 510% per year. [edit]Awards
[8] [7]

and recognition
[9]

ISO 9001:2000 certified by the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand

[edit]References

1.

^ Pathak R.C. (1946, Reprint 2000). The Standard Dictionary of the Hindi Language, Varanasi: Bhargava Book Depot,pp.300,680

2. 3. 4. 5.

^ Bombay Dabbawalas go high-tech ^ Rediff News. Mumbai's amazing Dabbawalas. (November 11, 2005). ^ BBC News: India's tiffinwalas fuel economy ^ "Regardless of a dabbawala's function, everyone gets paid about two to four thousand rupees per month (around 25-50 British pounds or 40-80 US dollars)." from the website www.mydabbawala.com

6. 7. 8.

^ The Guardian. A Bombay lunchbox (June 24, 2002). ^ Amberish K Diwanji, "Dabbawallahs: Mumbai's best managed business", Rediff.com, November 4, 2003 ^ In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver from The New York Times

9.

^ Mydabbawala.com: Accolades To Dabbawala

[edit]Further

reading

Shekhar Gupta, Our computer is our head and our Gandhi cap is the cover to protect it from the sun or rain, Indian Express, Walk the Talk, NDTV 24x7.

Hart, Jeremy (2006-03-19). "The Mumbai working lunch". The Independent Online (The Independent group, London). Retrieved 2007-03-20.

"Indian lunchbox carriers to attend the Royal nuptials". Evening Standard (London) (Associated Newspapers Ltd). 2005-04-05. Retrieved 2007-03-20.

[edit]External

links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dabbawalas

Mumbai Dabbawala website Dabbawala - The Lunchbox Miracle, documentary film at the ZDFmediathek (German). Dubbawallas, documentary film by Paul S. Goodman and Denise M. Rousseau. Changing Nature of Work series.

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