Because not only do they have to get lunch to 175,000 people, they also have to pick it up!
You are right, I glossed over that fact.
I was just using my experience as a vague point of reference for how complicated such a business is - even though on the outside it seems like it might be simple.
It is the opposite for me. How bad would it have to get for me to run around in the rain on a bicycle to deliver someone's home-cooked lunch to their office? Pretty bad. I would have to be pretty deep in poverty before I would start considering that. I guess one person looks at this as the triumph of free enterprise, another looks at it as how desperate the situation can get for some. If it is the only job they can get and they have hungry children at home, you bet they will get that 6 sigmas of reliability...
If you can be a surgeon, you will be. If you can't, you won't.
But whatever you decide to do, you can excel at it and move up as needs be (in most free societies anyway).
You don't need to do this, so you wouldn't be their ideal delivery man. If you were, you would probably lose a few lunches and that would damage their reliability....which hurts their system and company.
So the free market has priced you out of that job - because you wouldn't likely work for the pittance these guys earn.
All of that being said, if these guys save and start to do other things, they too can eventually move up and possibly even start their own company that allows their past employer to outsource some functions to them!
That might not happen, but nothing is really stopping them (cultural nuances aside, like caste, etc.) aside from good old fashioned drive and hard work.
Edit: Plus you are missing the point. I am not saying that those delivery men are what is impressive. What is impressive is whoever put the system together that allows them to have the six sigma reliability when they are depending on thousands of illiterate men. That! is impressive....in my humble opinion.
The service industry is an unenviable place to be in, no matter where you are. I don't particularly buy that being in the "delivering lunches in the rain" business is a good indicator of particularly disturbing poverty.
And if you lose your job you have no other option but to starve(With your family and kids). Its a little bit to imagine this in the US, partly because you haven't even the outside idea what sort of poverty is there here in India.
They are not the same. And that sort of desperation can't be felt unless you are in that situation.
I understand why you would get it delivered so it is hotter/fresher... but not the return
[edit: watched the video he says that its very hard to carry things and board trains in mumbai, thus worth it to have the tiffin returned home as well]
And this isn't the case only during peak hours, this is the situation 24x7.