Mumbai Dabbawallas: A case Study

MUMBAI DABBAWALLAHS

The British public was not too happy with Prince Charles’ marriage, but Raghunath D. Megde, leader of the 5000- strong Mumbai dabbawallahs, was kicked: ‘Yeh hamare yaar ki shaadi hai’. Camilla Parker Bowles had a wedding present from India no member of the British royalty has ever had. So what if she has to be content with only being called Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, and at best Princess Consort, if her husband ascends the throne. In her gifts, she found a traditional chhavvari (six yards long) Maharashtrian silk sari and a matching blouse- probably green in colour. Her husband was not overlooked either- he got a traditional pheta (turban). These were gifts to the couple from the dabbawallahs of Mumbai. Raghunath D. Medge and Sopan Laxman Mare, leaders of the 5000- strong Mumbai Dabbawallahs (Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust, the organization that runs this service), were two special invitees of Prince Charles. The Prince remembered the Gifts they sent on hearing of his wedding and was touched by their sentiment. The Queen told Medge she knew about the Tiffin-carriers of Mumbai from TV and newspapers while Prince Charles said it was nice of them to come and then added to convey his greetings and good wishes to other members.

No wonder Medge said at the end of the wedding, ‘We will never forget the attention we got from Price Charles. Now we are being given attention by our own VIPs back home too.’ He added,’ we felt like being in a fairyland at Windsor. It was like a dream, spending time at a 900-year old castle and treated equal to Dukes, Duchess, and other dignitaries. We are grateful to him as we said in our wedding greetings card ‘thank you for enlightening the life dabbawallahs’. The dabbawallahs’ tryst with Prince Charles started in 2003, when he was on a visit to India. Medge was elated by Prince Chales’ visit. ‘We are glad that this ‘raja of England’ is interested in our work. Tragically, no leader of India has ever inquired about our work and our troubles,’ he said. Medge and the organization’s secretary Gangaram Talekar, garlanded the Prince, placed a shawl on him, and offered him a white Gandhi cap which he politely declined to wear. This brief ceremony took place in the premises of the Western Railway Headquarters, Opposite Churchgate station in south Mumbai. Medge and Talekar then explained the intricacies of their business to the Prince, showing him a long rectangle tray that carries up to 40 boxes. They explained how the boxes that are collected from various houses in the suburbs are sorted and sent to specific stations, where they are sorted to be sent to various offices. Explaining the rationale for the Prince’s visit to the dabbawallahs, a British High Commission official said the idea was to show him something that was unique in Mumbai. ‘I don’t think any other city anywhere in the world or even India has such a system,’ she said, adding, ‘also, the Prince of Wales is always keen to meet people, so we felt this would be ideal.’ Back home, after the wedding of Prince Charles, these leaders of the dabbawallahs are getting similar attention. Medge, who was invited at Chennai to receive the ‘Lucas TVS NIQR’ Award, received a standing ovation in Le Royal Meridien. After receiving this award from the National Institution for Quality and Reliability, he said ‘it is surprising to note that after doing business for more than 100 years now, our model of enterprise had become a global case study for MBAs and PhD students.’ Their business model had caught the attention of even the hallowed ‘Forbes.’ The American business magazine conferred the ‘Six Sigma’ plus rating on Dabbawallahs, meaning only one error in six million deliveries, alongside the likes of GE and Motorola in terms of efficiency and quality of service. Their modus operandi too has been well documented by the likes of BBC and Dutch and German film makers.

There are close to 5000 dabbawallahs operating in Mumbai City supplying 1,70,000 dabbas every day. Their operations are so complex that if even one thing goes out of place, it would lead to chaos, so much so that even when Prince Charles came to visit them, they did not delay their operations. A lot of people believe that the food dabbawallahs deliver is also cooked by them. In reality, they only deliver food to the people of Mumbai which is cooked in the home of the people by their wives, sisters, or mothers. The Tiffin box that the food is delivered in also belongs to the customer. Dabbawallahs have a unique colour coding system that they put on the boxes. Their ancestors started by first using coloured threads. Then they switched to using pieces of cloth and now dabbawallahs use oil paint and symbols. The first colour symbolizes a ‘group’. A group comprises 10 to 20 people who service one station. Just like a cricket team there are a few substitutes in case someone falls ill. Each group picks up about 40 Tiffin’s from their area and delivers them to the local railway station. There they are sorted according to their destination. The alphabet written on the Tiffin box stands for the person who collects the Tiffin’s from the house, and the number is for its destination. From the Six Sigma point of View, the dabbawallahs get complaints of someone’s Tiffin getting mixed up or lost. It happens only once in a month or two when they get a complaint. On following up on the complaint they generally find that it was stolen by a hungry beggar. They then keep a lookout for it in the market and on spotting it buy it back and return it to the rightful owner. Dabbawallahs claim that they never misplace anything due to any confusion on their part. It obviously is a puzzle for many who wonder how they have managed to reach such levels of efficiency with such untrained work force. Megde says, ‘It just depends on hard work and sincerity, only when you fly high can you reach the stars. The uneducated have an ability to memorize and retain more as opposed to the educated who are used to writing down everything. ‘ Dabbawallahs charge Rs. 250-300 per month from a customer. That includes picking up the Tiffin from home, delivering it to the office, and then returning the empty Tiffin back home. Every station on Mumbai’s Western, Central, and harbor railway lines has two groups ranging between 15 to 40 people. ‘All of us are entrepreneurs who come together to deliver as a hub and spoke operations, ‘says the 63-year old Jairaj Surve, a dabbawallah. The meals picked up from clients by 9-9:30 a.m. are brought to closest railway station. Numbers and symbols painted on the aluminium cases help to sort out next hour, they are loaded in trains and taken to their destinations, where they are once again sorted out on the basis of office, street, and floor. Even as the dabba is picked up from a client’s home and delivered by one person, it is delivered and picked up from the workplace by another person. It goes through 3 to 4 hands before reaching its destination. Till 1980, it was a worker-employer relationship, whereby there used to be a contractor who would employ 20-25 workers under Datta Samant which lasted for 20-22 days, caused huge losses for the dabbawallahs. Their losses were further compounded by the mill strike. This made them wonder what would happen if their workers were to go on strike. This was the reason that every worker was made a shareholder. This way they put in more effort and since everyone is a shareholder, there is no question of a union. There are elections for the post of the president of the trust and the person getting majority votes becomes the president. There is a show of hands and the person getting the most hand wins. There are disputes between dabbawallahs at times, but they are settled on the 15th of every month by the Panch Committee. Dabbawallahs have their own mini-Government which levies a fine on the workers for making mistakes like not turning up for duty or drinking alcohol while on duty. No dispute has ever reached the police of the courts.