Mumbai is the city of dreams. The streets of this city are bustling with people, and there is a certain sense of urgency possessed by everyone who passes by. It is, after all India’s financial capital. Another important aspect of everyday life are the city’s dabbawalas.
Since 1890. dressed in white outfit and traditional Gandhi cap, Mumbai army of 5,000 Dabbawalas are fulfilling the hunger of almost 2,00,000 Mumbaikars with home cooked food that is lug between home and office daily. They are a lunchbox delivery and return system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work. The lunchboxes are picked up late morning, delivered predominantly using bicycles and railway trains. and returned empty in the afternoon.
They have worked through the worst situations. Rains, floods, terror attacks but never seen something like this before. The pandemic has disrupted the delivery services, since most of the offices are closed and Mumbai’s workforce are managing work from home. A veteran tiffinwala stated that his team of seven dabbawalas used to make around 20 deliveries before, but now, not more than four. This forced him to go to his hometown in Pune to do farming, as he had to make ends meet for him and his family.
Ad Covid changed culinary culture, delivering hot lunches that would fetch dabbawalas Rs.14000-20,000 monthly has now reduced to almost nil. Following lockdown, around 3000 dabbawalas from many parts of Maharashtra especially Pune, Ambegaon returned back to their hometowns due to insufficient source of income. When offices started opening up last June, they were able to restart their services but with 300 dabbawalas. In the second lockdown, there is work for only 100-150. Mumbai dabbawalas saw their business plunge by nearly 90%.
Struggling to resume services, they found a new breed of tiffin takers-Covid care facilities, poeple in home quarantine, isolation centres and healthcare workers in hospitals. As times are changing, it was time for the approach of the Mumbai dabbawalas to change and run parallel to the current scenarios.
A recent news article stated,”There is no turning back the wheel and the tiffin carriers will no longer just be dropping off lunch boxes as they kick off the next era with the ‘cloud kitchen’. ”
Now, the Mumbai dabbawalas have created a website where poeple can directly place their orders. One can choose between monthly and annual subscriptions and they have also introduced online money transfers to make payments easier. Dabba services have always depended upon cash transactions and they faced financial difficulties during the pandemic.
The idea is to use their unique sorting skills to diversify, generate employment, bring stability and pride in what is India’s oldest food delivery chain. This website will also allow customers to choose between mini-meals and regular meals and will provide a wide menu of items to choose from.
This will be a huge transformation for the Mumbai dabbawalas who are now exploring new options and advancing in technology. They will rustle up a seven day rotating menu of home-style lunches in a 1,000 sq feet “cloud kitchen” at Saki Naka aimed at time-starved millenials. Some of the dabbawalas and their wives are currently being trained and they should be launching their service by mid-June.
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