Flipkart on Thursday said it had partnered a union of dabbawallahs in Mumbai for the last-mile delivery of goods ordered on its portal. The partnership included delivery of prepaid orders; cash-on-delivery orders would be included later, Flipkart said.

Dabbawallahs would collect shipments from delivery hubs of Flipkart and deliver it to the customers, while picking their dabbas. The dabbawallahs will not be interacting with sellers at this stage.

One first batch of dabbawalas have undergone training at Flipkart's delivery centers, the company said, adding that they would use a paper-based tracking system as of now, but the company will gradually train them to use mobile apps and wearable devices.

He has also managed Motorola's value devices engineering group and was the managing director of Google India for research and development.

At Flipkart, Ranjan will work closely with Mukesh Bansal, who heads the company's commerce platform.

"Ranjan's experience managing Google's engineering group in India and his expertise in mobile is a tremendous addition to Flipkart's outstanding technology team," Bansal said. "His passion for working on innovative projects will be extremely valuable as Flipkart takes shape as one of the world's leading technology "



Flipkart has been on a spree of hiring senior-level executives. Just a few days ago, Flipkart had announced the appointments of three other top-executives - Hari Vasudev as senior vice-president for engineering, information technology and supply-chain analytics; K V Anand as senior vice-president for customer experience; Manish Maheshwari, co-founder of txtWeb - a marketplace for text-based apps, joined Flipkart as vice-president and head of seller ecosystem.

Vasudev was earlier vice-president at Yahoo; Anand was earlier president, digital platforms, Hathway Cable & Datacom.

Last month, Flipkart had brought on board Punit Soni as its chief product officer. Soni was earlier vice president of product management at Motorola and a Google product management executive.

Both Soni and Ranjan will from move from California to Flipkart's Bengaluru headquarters.

"Soni and Ranjan have worked closely for Google and Motorola for such projects as the launch of Motorola's Moto G and Moto E devices, which were both highly popular in emerging markets including India," Flipkart said.

Ranjan has degrees in computer science from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and Purdue University, and an MBA from the University of Washington.