As the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, several offices were kept closed leading the Mumbai’s famous ‘dabbawalla’s’ out of work. Reportedly, this 130 year old ‘dabbawalla’ network has associated with a trendy restaurant chain to face India’s billion dollar start ups.
Kailash Shinde one among the 5000 dabbawallas who used to deliver hot lunches to Mumbai office workers expressed “It’s been very difficult”, as cited by ‘Aljazeera’ . The father of two children added, “I had to sell what I could and work odd jobs to get by.”
The Mumbai ‘dabbawalla’ network is an intricate system of alphanumeric codes that helps the large number of semi literate or the illiterate work force collect, sort and distribute around 200,000 meals across the financial capital via bicycles, hand carts and a sprawling local train network .
Harvard Business School studied their work as a ‘model of service excellence’. Further, their work has inspired personal visits from Richard Branson, Prince Charles as well as from the global delivery giants FedEx and Amazon.
Ulhas Muke of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity trust that represents the workforce voiced, “Our members have had to work as security guards and laborers, in addition to seeking jobs as deliverymen for restaurants.”
Unemployed for the first time in 22 years, Pandurang Jadhav stated that the delivery jobs are getting harder as it is now increasingly dominated by the mobile apps. Jadhav who shifted to his ancestral village following his unemployment expressed to the AFP news, ‘I used to love working as a dabbawalla’ and further termed it as the ‘best job’.
In the month of May, some of the Mumbai’s most popular eateries helped Jadhav and 30 others to return to their work through a partnership.
Following the partnership, Jadhav now delivers restaurant meals to the professionals instead of home cooked meals in stainless steel tiffin boxes.
The scheme facilitates the restaurateurs to avail local duopoly of delivery giants namely Zomato and Swiggy whose steep discounts and razor thin margins have minimized the restaurants profits.
Riyaaz Amlani who is the owner of Impresario Restaurants said that they are trying to find a way out of the tyranny of the aggregators. He agreed, “of course we want to help the dabbawalla. They are the original deliverymen of Mumbai”, as quoted by AFP.
Amlani further proposes to stretch his partnership with the dabbawallas. However experts suggests that Amlani alone might not be enough to support the famous deliverymen withstand the pandemic.
Sreedevi R, an assistant professor at Mumbai’s SP Jain Institute of Management and Research stated, “It is paramount for them to be flexible at this point.” She added as quoted by AFP, ” The dabbawallas could become delivery agents for last mile delivery not just for restaurants but also for any e-commerce business.”
Meanwhile, Muke who is from the dabbawallas representative group is formulating plans to establish a commercial kitchen of their own that will aim to deliver inexpensive meals across the city.
As per reports, he have already obtained millions of dollar through donation. Banking giant HSBC have contributed around $2 million for the initiative. It has also set up a kitchen which is scheduled to open in the coming weeks.
Muke expressed that this is the work he likes to do. “I want to keep delivering food to the people,” he added.
