Sachin Kalbag
Saturday, March 25, 2006 01:07 IST

MUMBAI: The humble, semi-literate, yet Six Sigma certified Mumbai dabbawala got smarter. This evening, this much-talked about community will launch its website www.mydabbawala.com at a function at Vile Parle in Mumbai.

Even though the site is in its initial stages of development -- the pictures are pixellated, the design is amateurish, and it runs free on a popular web hosting site called GoDaddy.com -- the man who developed and designed the website says will soon have a section where Mumbaikars can apply for a dabba delivery service online.

“We do not want to emphasise on design,” says Manish Tripathi, a software engineer from Varanasi, who has created the site free of cost.

“The site has been built to essentially bring the regular Mumbai citizen closer to the dabbawala. By next week, you can apply online for a dabba to be delivered to your office.”

Dabbawalas have been around in the city for 115 years, but it was only after Prince Charles’ visit in 2003, and Virgin Atlantic chief Richard Branson’s visit in 2005 that the community got worldwide attention.

“The site will now take us to a different level,” feels Raghunath Medge, president of the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association.

“We deliver nearly 1.75 lakh dabbas a day. With the site, we hope to take that number to 2 lakh.”

The association has more than 5000 dabbawalas, each earning around Rs4,000 per month. “Besides being a single point of contact with the world,” says Tripathi, “this site will help employment as it will help get more orders.”

Medge feels the site will also bust a few myths about the community. “We don’t just deliver dabbas from homes to offices and back. We have tie-ups with outlets that cater to specific communities. For instance, we deliver Rajasthani food to an immigrant from that state, or Gujarati food from a mess run by that community.”

Tripathi says there was a lot of initial reluctance to go online. It was only after his company, Bharat Petroleum, donated two personal computers on which they now learn word processing and spreadsheets to maintain databases, that they decided to become IT savvy.

“I had to force them to come and collect the PCs,” says Tripathi.

Tripathi aims to get corporate support in two ways – one, by way of donations to the dabbawalas’ cause, and the other by inviting captains of industry to write weekly columns on the website.

Medge has a bigger goal, though. “With so many restaurants running their own delivery service, competition is getting tough,” he admits. “With this site, we want to prove that we are not far behind.”

What you can do on the site
Order a dabba online (application goes live next week)
Track your order status
Learn about this history of the dabbawala community
Buy endorsed products like T-shirts, CDs, and mugs
Download wallpapers