India Inc takes some time off to applaud India Invisible

And Alok Sharma’s is another name you’d have a problem identifying. Yet, in 2001, he accomplished a task that would challenge even logistical giants like UPS: keeping law and order at the Kumbh Mela.

Talekar and Sharma, among others, were participants at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Leadership Summit here today when, for once, the men in suits took business lessons.

Talekar is the secretary of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust, more popularly known as Mumbai’s dabbawallas.

They’re the people who collect lunch boxes from houses and deliver them to the office, bang on time, 365 days a year, with no mistake. Actually, that’s not fully correct — according to Forbes, Talekar’s gang makes one mistake in every eight million transactions!

The statistics took even the more typical corporate leaders in the audience by surprise. There’s no huge computerised network to track the lunch boxes, just some simple codes Talekar calls molis—Nutan’s current president Raghunath Medge has modified this to use numbers and the English alphabet.

And this army of 5,000 dabbawalas does over Rs 100 crore of business each year, and it’s growing at a rapid pace, though Talekar seems least aware of this. ‘‘Hum is sab ke baare mein kuch nahin jante (We don’t know anything about all this).’

Do you have strikes, asked one suited Corporate Leader. ‘‘Apne business mein kaise strike (It’s our own business so there’s no scope of a strike)’’, Talekar replied pithily.

How much do the dabbalwalas earn, asked another. ‘‘Rs 5,000-6,000 ke beech, toh income-tax ka sawal heen nahin hota (It ranges between Rs 5,000-6,000, so there’s no question of income-tax)’’.

Like Talekar, Superintendent of Police Alok Sharma has no degree in management but, at the Kumbh between January 9 and February 13 last year, he handled crowds of up to 100 million, and with no mishap.

Sharma was in charge of the arrangements, his job to ensure that the millions of devotees could take a dip safely— no stampedes, no crime, no problems with water or sanitation.

His army of 20,000 men started with building various makeshift roads to Sangam, then making 15 pontoon bridges connecting various sections of the Ganga and Yamuna. As his major task was managing the traffic of people coming for the holy dip, he had to co-ordinate with local and nearby railway stations and also keep a tab on incoming road traffic.

‘‘I was there in Allahabad with no office, no forces under me. All I could see was sand, sand and sand — 10 kms from north to south and 10 kms from east to west. And soon I got my 20,000 men — who certainly were not the best of the lot. I had to spend a lot of time trying to get the best out of them and to see to it that my man is on duty.’’

There were instances, Sharma recounted, when policemen left duty and went for a dip; you just had to grin and bear it. ‘‘For how can he possibly be deprived of the straight route to swarg?’’

Sharma’s recipe for success? Dedication, clearing doubts about one’s own self, and a strong common sense. And, at the same time, building up a strong team and sharing credit with it.