A dabbawala, is a person in Mumbai whose job is to carry and deliver freshly made food from home in lunch boxes to office workers, students, and boxes back to the source.
For any collective action to happen there must be some unfulfilled needs and wants so towards the end of the 19th century Mumbai say huge influx of migrants from various parts of India as lot of textile mills were getting established in and around Mumbai. These people came without there families and at that point of time there was also no concept of canteens. Since working hours was were very early so they were also not able to prepare food for themselves. As these people came from different parts of country so there food preferences were also different but as a whole they were looking for fresh home cooked food.
Mahadev Bache identified the need and thought of problem as opportunity. He recruited youth from his village but since his idea was unheard of at that point of time so only youth with insufficient agricultural income came forward. Operations began in 1890 with 20 dabbawalas, monthly charges were 2/- per month per customer and target customers were majorly Textile mill workers. It became charitable trust in 1956 and current employee strength is around 5000 dabbawalas. Earnings per member is around 5000-6000/- per month and number of tiffins handled on daily basis is around 2 Lakh.
Mumbai dabbawalas follow the flat structure for better communication between top management and dabbawalas. Instead of following top down approach they follow the bottom up approach. Dabbawalas have high degree of faith in the organization and every departing dabbawala is committed to finding a replacement before leaving. Each Dabbawala is share holder of the organization inline with the Amul model and it acts as a motivation for the Dabbawalas to perform efficiently. The delivery rates of the dabbawallas are so nominal (about Rs 300 per month) that one simply wouldn't bargain any further. It provides very competitive rates to the House wives and also offer lot of benefits to the dabbawallas.
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I am mighty impressed by the work of Mumbai Dabaahwallahs. At first I wanted to take the topic and study it as per the CAC Assignment but then my friend took it and did full justice to the topic. The Dabahhwallahs are thoroughly professional people delivering services to the daily office goers at their door step. It gives housewives an opportunity to send their husbands hot cooked meals . My interest in their style of working grew when i saw a documentary about them in the Discovery channel. I learnt there that they use some special codes marked by different colours and put it on the lunch boxes signifying the source and the destination of the lunch box. In the process of carrying the box it exchanges many hands and finally reaches the office goer at his lunch time. The model is highly efficient with the chances of going it haywire is next to impossible. One shouldn't forget the role of Train shuttle services in and around Mumbai which allows them to cover distances and reach the desired destinations in the nick of time.This model gives us a lesson as Management graduates that no amount of theory can make us super beings unless and until we learn the basic and practical aspects of management.
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