Most of Mumbai’s dabbawalas - a workforce unique to the city, have left it and gone back to their hilly villages in the Sahyadri range. There, they struggle to make ends meet, living mostly on charity or loans from friends.
A 2010 study by Harvard Business School had graded the 5000-strong workforce six sigma - which means they make less than 3.4 mistakes per million transactions. A third-generation Dabbawala and President of Mumbai Dabbawala Association Raghunath Medge says, “Two sigmas out of this is our dabbawalas, two - the local trains and another two - our cycles. Till local trains don’t work we can’t work.”
“Our condition is like that of the migrants,” he says. With the Dabbawalas having no online payment system and depending on monthly cash payments from clients, their service having stopped on March 19, many have not been able to get the payment of March either. Many do not have a bank account.
“We consider the customer as king. He is like God to us. We have asked. Some gave, some have not, but we don’t insist,” he says.
The unique geography of the city and its well-connected suburban train network has played a major role in the success of their model. Mumbai being one of the worst affected cities in the country in the Coronavirus pandemic, normal operations of local trains is expected to take time.
65-year-old Yamnaji Ghule, returned to his village of Pait in Khed taluk in Pune district some three weeks ago with family. He has been a dabbawala for 40 years. Some people have sent pay online to him, but most did not. “We could not go to buildings as societies stopped allowing us. Some customers started avoiding our calls,” Ghule says. Of his 25 customers, only four made online payment to him. But one customer was good enough to pay him for April too.
Similar is the story of Njaneshwar Kanshe, 47 whose wife - a domestic help has also been unpaid. He did not return to his village and has no ration card here. Feeding a family of four has been a struggle. He got provisions in charity twice, but the food was over in two weeks. “We did not expect the lockdown to be so extended and wanted to avoid being in quarantine if we go back to our native, so stayed on,” he says. His friend gave him a Rs. 3,000 loan that he must pay back in two months. The family manages buy minimising on vegetables and milk.
While many left soon after after their service stopped and the lockdown was still to be imposed taking buses, those who stayed on had to then depend on private vehicles. These charged Rs. 2,000 per person. Some dabbawalas took rickshaws to their villages, others crossed a mountain range after Karjat and then walked five to ten hours to reach their villages.
Suresh Bacche, 47 left his home in Andheri soon after the Dabbawala service stopped. His son, working with Ola, had no work either. They have been depending on help of neighbours back in their village of Wajavne. His Rs. 6,000 rent back in the city is unpaid.
Nana Sawant and his family chose to stay back, but says he feels stuck here. He does not have to worry about rent, as he has his own house and even a ration card, unlike many others. “To reach our village, we would have to spend a lot on private vehicles. Getting there, we would have had be quarantined and our relatives would have to get food for us at the quarantine centre. So we remained here,” he says, but added that his savings have vanished by now and the going is getting tough.
Vinod Shete, spokesperson of the association says that till normalcy does not return he does not see their services starting. “There is a high possibility customers will not come back and will prefer to take the dabbas themselves to their workplace. We can’t blame. Given the situation, we may also have done the same in their place,” he says.
