Mumbai’s ubiquitous dabbawalas dwindle in face of post-Covid wariness, surge in app usage

Mumbai's dabbawalas, known for their efficient lunchbox delivery system, have been hit hard by the pandemic, with their numbers dropping from 5,000 to 1,000.

In 2010, the Railways added three luggage compartments to Mumbai’s local trains to help facilitate travel for the 5,000-odd dabbawalas and their ubiquitous six-foot-long wooden carriers laden with lunch boxes for tens of thousands of office goers working in airless cubbyholes and expansive open-plan offices alike.

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Last week, the Railway Board told the Bombay high court in the course of a public interest litigation (PIL) that it was considering cutting one of the three luggage compartments and reserving it for senior citizens instead.

What lay exposed by this unrelated PIL on seats for senior citizens was an extraordinary saga of the unravelling of an iconic Mumbai institution, pummelled first by the lockdown and then changes in consumer behaviour during the pandemic.

For decades, the punctual and unerring delivery of tens of thousands of lunches across Mumbai by a phalanx of men dressed in crisp white shirts and trousers, and a white cap on which the wooden crate was often balanced, earned dabbawalas global accolades. Often considered the beating heart of India’s financial capital, their complex system of successfully negotiating the maze of roads and bylanes in a centuries-old city became the subject of a Harvard Business School study, which graded it six sigma (meaning less than four mistakes per million transactions) and multiple documentaries. When multinational couriers came to India, their first stop was understanding how dabbawalas navigated the logistics of a city with clockwork precision. They earned fulsome praise, from King Charles to tycoon Richard Branson alike.

That halo lies tarnished today. From a little over 5,000, their numbers are down to 1,000, says Subhash Talekar, president of Mumbai dabbawala association. “It’s likely to drop further. The pandemic and lockdown broke the back of our business.”

Covid may be ebbing, but for the dabbawalas, the paranoia it generated still looms. “Most of the offices and schools that we catered to have barred access to us. The number of lunch boxes that we used to deliver has dropped from 150,000 to 200,000 per day before Covid to 15,000 to 20,000 per day now,” says Talekar.

The dabbawalas came to ply their trade 130 years ago, carrying lunch for the workers of Mumbai’s thriving mills. As the mills gave way to shiny offices of the new service economy, dabbawalas continued to thrive. They were also one of the few bastions of Marathi-speaking labour force in a city which was dominated by migrant labour.

“During the pandemic people became habituated to carrying their food from home. That has also hit us in a big way in addition to big offices not allowing us entry. And those order from outside can now do it from app-based deliveries,” says Prakash Gagre who has been in the business for 20 years. Gagre says his monthly earnings from dabba deliveries has dropped from ₹25,000 per month to ₹12,000 to 15,000. He now supplements his income by other odd jobs.

“We used to be considered mere hamaals (porters), but after Prince Charles met us and told the world about us in 2003, everyone began to recognise our contribution to this city,” says Talekar. But once again, many members of the dabbawala association he heads are now looking at becoming coolies, driving auto rickshaws or working as couriers. The Mumbai dabbawala association comes under Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supply Charitable Trust which charges each dabbawala ₹240 as annual fee. “But now we skip this in most cases as we know the hardships that Mumbai’s dabbawalas are facing,” says Sopan Mare, one of the members of the charitable trust.

On their part, the railways say their commitment to reserve a compartment for senior citizens stems from their internal survey that showed the number of dabbawalas travelling on local trains had fallen significantly.

“We are still working out the details on the total number of tickets sold for luggage compartment. However, there has been a drop by around 25-30%,” said a senior railway official not willing to be quoted. The survey found that luggage compartments were now being occupied by general commuters instead of the dabbawalas.

“Before the pandemic, 400 groups of dabbawalas, each comprising 10-25 members, would fan across the city every day delivering lunch. Now there are barely four or six people in each group,” says Gagre underscoring the sharp fall in business.

For Talekar, this loss of business is accentuated by the loss of prestige. “In 2011, I was at Harvard to talk about our delivery system. Since then I have had the opportunity to meet with top business leaders from around the world who wanted to understand how we functioned with such punctuality and zero mistakes. But now, when our numbers are diminishing, there is no support. All we want is that the corporate offices and MNCs provide us entry into their premises. At least then our livelihood could be revived.”