Dabbawallas to represent Maharashtra in Republic Day Parade - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The famed dabbawallas (lunchbox deliverymen) of Mumbai city, who deliver homemade lunch in tiffin boxes to thousands of office-goers with clockwork precision, have expressed their happiness at being selected to represent Maharashtra in the annual Republic Day Parade on January 26. Everyday, nearly five thousand dabbawallas supply lunch-boxes to lakhs of city dwellers in Mumbai. They are famed for their accuracy. The Forbes magazine has given the dabbawalla syndicate a Six Sigma performance rating or a 99.99999 percent of precision, which mean they have only one error in six million deliveries. Dabbawallas have a coding system, which ensures that correct tiffin reaches the correct person. Jaisingh Pingle, a Dabbawala, expressed his happiness on being invited to be part of Republic Day Parade. "We are very happy. One rarely gets opportunity like this. We are very happy that we will participate in the Republic Day parade," said Jaisingh Pingle, Supervisor of dabbawala service. According to customers, dabbawallas are doing good work for society, so they deserve this honour. "It is good that they will be called and they will be given respect. They do good work delivering lunchboxes, that's why they are called," said Paul D'souza, a customer of dabbawala. The Mumbai city has one of the oldest and biggest meals-on-wheels systems in the world dating back to 1850. In the dabbawalla syndicate, everyone is a shareholder and irrespective of a member's function in the entire supply chain, and each is paid anything between rupees 2000 to rupees 4000 a month.