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Dial 3636 for Mumbai's dabbawalas

June 26, 2006 11:37 IST
Mumbai's ubiquitous dabbawala has just gone hi-tech. The Gandhi cap-donning logistics professional may not know the SMS lingo, but he sure knows how to stay connected via a mobile phone.

Call him directly or send an SMS to 3636 and you can as well book a dabbawala's service for yourself. And if that's not all, the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust now also has its website - www.mydabbawala.com - wherein you can book services, register a complaint or even get access to information like unavailability of services during a specific period.

"We have been adding several customers per day through this website, and we bagged 15 customers on the first day of launching the SMS service," Manish Tripathi, who is leading the IT initiative for the association, says. Tripathi is a software consultant by profession and works voluntarily for the association.

The association has also received interest through the website, from hospitality industry players who intend to use the services of the 5,000 member-strong association to deliver food.

"In fact, there is a popular film actress of yesteryears who is entering the hospitality business and is interested in partnering with us," he adds.

However, convincing the members of the advantages of technology is not all that easy for Tripathi. Not many understand what he does and the personal computers that have been brought to their offices are lying untouched.

Exchanging his visiting card, Gangaram Talekar, secretary of the trust, says, "I don't think we really need technology."

The trust has so far been running its Rs 36-crore (Rs 360 million) business of delivering 2 lakh tiffin boxes each day with more than 99
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per cent accuracy. All this without the use of technology. It has, therefore, convinced them that technology is something they can as well do without.

Also, the average age of a dabbawala today is 52 years and as Talekar puts it, most of them are "thumbs up" (illiterate). These issues are coming in the way of adaptation of technology as well.

In fact, Talekar says that in 2001, when they were told of their Six Sigma efficiency, it did not really matter to them.

"With or without this certification, we will continue to do our job of delivering food to our 2 lakh customers efficiently," he adds in his inimitable humble style. The monthly compensation for a dabbawala is Rs 5,000-Rs 6,000. The association has been running at an error rate of one in 16 million transactions with a record of having no strikes.

The dabbawalas have developed their own coding standards for delivering the right box to the right person at the right time, again without the help of any professional consultant.

Raghunath Medge, president of the trust, says, "An educated owner will not be able to identify his own tiffin box in the maze of boxes, but an illiterate dabbawala will do that in a jiffy."

Today, this work efficiency has been recognised across the globe and the representatives of the trust will be flying to Italy again to attend the Terra Madre - a world meeting of food communities - in October.

Tripathi, Talekar and Medge were in Hyderabad to interact with the students of the Indian School of Business. Ironically, the school had contacted them through the tech mode - the website of the dabbawalas. BS Regional Bureau Chennai/ Hyderabad
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