Mumbai Dabbawalas will deliver parcels too

Along with your daily tiffin, you can even hand the dabbawala a parcel or two to be couriered to its destination in the city within a day. The city's indomitable dabbawalas are expanding the scope of their service and are even developing an app for it.

"On every station, in every team, we have at least five substitutes dabbawalas to help in case of emergency," said Subhash Talekar, spokesperson for the Mumbai Dabbawala Association, "When there is no emergency, they don't have much workload. The courier service will help them earn an extra money in their free time."

While the association is yet to finalize the date to kick off the service, they have the named it Papers and Parcels and the app will first be available on android. "Those dabbawalas doubling as courier men will have android phones," says Talekar. "While courier services take at least two days to deliver a parcel, we will deliver on the same day. We will also provide door-to-door pick up and drop service."

The seed of the idea was sown by a 12-year-old called Tilak Mehta. "He forgot his books at his grandmother's home, and told his father, Vishal Mehta, about the idea of getting them delivered by the dabbawalas. Vishal spoke to us and helped us to finalize the app," says Talekar.