Dabbawalas feted at BMC's Flower Show

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Saturday felicitated Mumbai's famous Dabbawalas (tiffin carriers) during its ongoing 25th Annual Flower Show and Exhibition at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Zoo here.

A flower model of the iconic Dabbawala with trademark Gandhi 'topi' (cap) and a rack full of lunch boxes on his head has been put up at the show, which started on Friday.

The theme of this year's show is 'icons of Mumbai' and it features topiary models of things that are associated with the megapolis, such as a textile mill and film camera as a symbol of the city's film industry.

More than 5,000 Dabbawalas deliver over two lakh tiffins to office-goers in the city every day, and are known globally for their punctuality and near-zero error rate.

The three railway lines -- Western, Central and Harbour -- that link 70 stations in the city ensure that lunch boxes travel from the farthest northern suburbs to business areas in south Mumbai within a maximum of two hours.

In 1998, the Forbes Global magazine gave a 'Six Sigma' rating of efficiency to Dabbawalas, whose business dates back 100 years.

Subhas Talekar, president of the Mumbai Dabbawala Association, said the BMC had specially invited association members to the exhibition.

They were overwhelmed by the felicitation by the civic body, he said.

"Without cooperation from the BMC, we would not be able to run our business. The BMC has provided us bicycle stands outside railway stations. It has also installed a statue of Dabbawala at Haji Ali junction," he said.

The exhibition features 25,000 species of shrubs, flowering plants, fruit-bearing trees, bonsai trees, exotic vegetables and spice shrubs to mark its 25th anniversary. It would end on Sunday.