Indian Lunch Runners Become Business Gurus

Two of Mumbai's "lunch runners" who help feed hundreds of thousands of workers every day will teach management techniques to steel executives in India, a report said Feb. 3. The two "dabba-wallahs" will run a three-day workshop for 2,000 employees of the Bhilai steel plant in central India, teaching "accuracy and precision," according to the Times of India.

Dabba-wallahs have been acclaimed internationally by management consultants for their system of delivering more than 200,000 homemade lunch boxes -- called "dabbas" -- every day using nearly 5,000 carriers in Mumbai.

The system was started more than a century ago and allows staff to stay at the office rather than travel home at lunchtime through the clogged streets of the densely populated western Indian city.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006