Dabba means Lunch box and wala means person with whom something belong in Hindi Language. Dabbawalas means the person who carries Lunch Box simply launch box delivery man.Now it has became a system of carrying or delivering lunch box from home to office and back to home from office.It was started in 1890 by Mahadeo Havaji Bachche with 100 people in Bombay.
The lunch boxes are collected in late morning and are delivered to respected place and are returned empty box in the afternoon.This system is popular because every individuals prefer to have homemade lunch. Dabbawaalas uses bicycle, bus,train as a means of transportation to deliver boxes.Most of the dabbawalas are illiterate so they uses colors coding and symbol to deliver boxes to the right place and customers. There are about 5000 dabbawalas and expected to deliver around 200,000 lunch boxes in a day.
Charge: About Rs.450 per lunch box per month
Salary: Around Rs.12,000 per month
Several management experts as well as management students from world uses Mumbai dabbawalas as a case study of business. Goods delivery system by FedEx and DHL are supposed to be inspired by Dabbawalas. There is a movie in bollywood called The Lunchbox which is also inspired from Dabbawalas