Send a parcel from Bangalore to Patna. We pick up free.
Close to 1,970 kilometres, from the Deccan up to the south bank of the Ganga. DTDC surface runs it in 4–5 working days and air express in 2–3. Pickup is free anywhere in Bengaluru at 5 kg and above, and on this lane the western student and rental belt does much of the booking — Nagarbhavi, Vijayanagar, Kengeri, Uttarahalli and up towards Sanjaynagar.
Collected across west Bengaluru, trunked up through central India, delivered across the 800xxx belt.
Pickup, Bengaluru.
West Bengaluru is where this lane lives. Nagarbhavi, Vijayanagar, Kengeri and Uttarahalli are straightforward all day and easiest mid-morning; Sanjaynagar and the northern side are better before the evening builds. Student and PG addresses are the norm here, so give us a room or floor number along with the building name, and a mobile the rider can reach when he is at the gate rather than at the door.
Bengaluru sortation.
The consignment is booked into DTDC's Bengaluru operation on the evening of pickup and rides that night's northbound trunk. On a route of nearly two thousand kilometres the booking hour is the single cheapest day you will ever buy — collected in the afternoon, it moves tonight; collected after the cut-off, it waits for tomorrow night.
Line-haul to the plain.
North through Hyderabad and Nagpur, then across central India and down onto the Gangetic plain into the Bihar network. Surface delivers in 4–5 working days. Express flies out of Kempegowda into Patna and delivers off the airport side of the city, which brings the whole journey to 2–3 working days.
Patna delivery.
The city runs on the 800xxx pin family, and it is bigger and more spread out than people expect — Boring Road, Patliputra Colony, Rajendra Nagar, Kankarbagh, Bailey Road and the Danapur side, plus the older Patna City quarter to the east around Patna Sahib, which has its own pin and its own lane structure. Kankarbagh and Rajendra Nagar are the two areas where a wrong pin code costs you a day.
POD on WhatsApp.
Signature, stamped slip or delivery photograph — whichever the rider took at the door reaches you on WhatsApp within an hour of the parcel changing hands.
Starting rates, Bangalore → Patna.
Charged on actual or volumetric weight, whichever is the greater, plus the fuel surcharge applicable on the date of booking. GST is extra.
- Standard parcel (surface) from ₹120 / kg 4–5 working days. Min billable 5 kg.
- Express parcel (air) from ₹180 / kg 2–3 working days. Door delivery.
- Bulk consignment (35 kg+) from ₹120 / kg Min 35 kg. Surface routing.
Pickup is free anywhere in Bengaluru at 5 kg and above. Volumetric weight is (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000 and it governs most of what moves here, because student trunks, bedding and festival clothing measure far larger than they weigh. Two dates shape this lane: the monsoon between July and September, when Ganga flooding and waterlogging in the low-lying colonies can hold up the last mile, and the fortnight before Chhath, when the whole network into Bihar runs at its annual peak.
Student and exam traffic, Chhath sendings, and the steady flow home from Bengaluru's Bihari workforce.
Exam and coaching material
Bihar sends more of its young people into competitive examinations than almost any state in the country, and Patna is the hub of that ecosystem — banking, railway, BPSC and civil-services preparation, engineering and medical entrance coaching. Bengaluru is where an elder sibling or cousin already works, and what goes up this lane is the material they buy and post: current-affairs compilations, previous-year sets, printed test series, standard reference books and, increasingly, a laptop or tablet for an online course. Books are heavy and cheap by weight, which makes surface the obvious service.
Chhath parcels home
The defining seasonal peak, and it is not a small one. Chhath in October or November is the festival Bihar organises its year around, and the people from Patna working in Bengaluru who cannot get leave to travel send instead. New clothes for parents and children, sarees, gifts, sometimes cash equivalents in kind. Volumes climb from roughly a fortnight out and the last mile inside Patna slows badly in the final three or four days. Post early and you are fine; post late and no service level rescues you.
Student trunks and hostel kit
The academic year moves goods in both directions. Bengaluru's colleges pull a steady intake from Bihar, and the reverse leg — a room in Patna being packed up for a course here, or a Bengaluru room being sent home at the end of a degree — runs constantly through June and July and again in April and May. Bedding, a mattress topper, books, a study lamp, kitchen bits, clothes. Vacuum-bag the soft goods before you seal the carton; on this lane that one step routinely saves a whole weight slab.
Parcels home from the workforce
Underneath the seasonal spikes is a constant, unglamorous flow. Bengaluru's construction, security, hospitality, retail, delivery and salon workforce draws heavily on Bihar, and much of it lives in the western and outer rental belt. What goes home is practical: a phone, school shoes, a fan, winter clothing, medicines in original packaging, provisions that cost less here. Small parcels, surface service, and the customers who most need a straight answer on the five-kilo minimum billable weight before they commit.
Documents and certificates
Educational certificates going home for verification, domicile and caste certificates, affidavits, bank and pension paperwork, insurance claims, and property papers for family land. This is express traffic without exception — put the recipient's mobile on the AWB, scan everything before you seal it, and tell us if there is a filing date, because a document that arrives after a deadline is worth nothing regardless of what you paid to move it.
Gifts, electronics and household goods
The category that grows every year. Handsets, tablets, smart watches, an induction cooktop, a mixer, an air cooler for the summer, a printer for a home study. All fine to send, all needing the original retail box inside an outer carton, an invoice inside, and the recipient's number on the label. Sealed retail devices with the battery fitted travel without any complication; what does not travel is covered in the list below, and one item on it is more serious in Bihar than anywhere else in the country.
A short, real list.
The first card is refused everywhere on the network. The second is specific to Bihar, and the first entry on it is not a courier rule but a state law with criminal consequences attached:
Banned outright
- Alcohol, beer, wine and spirits
- Liquids, syrups and anything that can seep
- Aerosols and pressurised cans
- Flammable solids, matches and lighters
- Fireworks and pyrotechnics
- Currency, bullion and unset stones
Common Bengaluru → Patna misjudgements
- Alcohol of any kind, in any quantity, as a gift — Bihar has operated a total prohibition on alcohol since 2016. This is not the usual courier restriction that people try to argue around; possession and transport into the state are criminal matters, and the person receiving the parcel carries the exposure as much as the sender does. We refuse it at booking without discussion. Send the gift box, leave the bottle out of it.
- Ayurvedic asava and arishta preparations, and alcohol-based tonics — the edge case that catches genuinely well-meaning senders. Many traditional formulations are fermented and carry meaningful alcohol content, which puts them squarely inside the state's prohibition regime as well as inside the network's liquids rule. Tablets, churnas, capsules and dry preparations are fine. Bottled tonics are not.
- Fresh litchi and mango sent as a treat — usually asked about in the reverse direction, in the May–June season, and the answer is the same either way. Fresh fruit is perishable, it ferments and leaks over a four-to-five day road journey, and no courier network will carry it. Dried makhana, on the other hand, travels beautifully and is one of the more common things we do move on this route.
- Homemade food in steel tiffin boxes — sent by parents and by children with equal optimism. Anything cooked or moist is perishable and refused; the box also invariably opens in transit. Factory-sealed dry snacks with a printed shelf life are a completely different proposition and go out on this lane every week.
- Fireworks around Diwali and Chhath — attempted every single year and refused every single year. Explosives cannot move on a courier network by road or by air under any circumstances, and there is no version of the request that changes that.
AWB on WhatsApp. Track on dtdc.in. POD when it lands.
Your AWB number is sent to you on WhatsApp at the point of booking, the run stays visible on dtdc.in from Bengaluru to the door, and the delivery proof arrives on the same thread within an hour. Two Patna-specific things are worth knowing. During the monsoon, roughly July into September, the Ganga runs high and the low-lying parts of the city — Kankarbagh and the Rajendra Nagar side in particular — see genuine waterlogging that stops two-wheeler delivery for hours or days at a stretch. Nothing is lost when that happens; the parcel is held and re-attempted, but the date slips and we would rather you knew that before you booked than after. Second, put the recipient's mobile number on every consignment. Much of the newer housing is gated with a guard who will not accept for a flat, and much of the older housing in Patna City runs on lanes that no map app resolves properly — in both cases a phone call from the rider is the difference between delivery and a return to the hub.
Specific to Bangalore → Patna.
Can I send alcohol as a gift to someone in Patna?
No, and this is the one restriction on our whole network that we will not discuss a way around. Bihar has enforced a complete prohibition on alcohol since 2016. Bringing liquor into the state is a criminal offence rather than a policy breach, and the exposure sits on the person who receives the consignment just as much as on the person who sent it. We refuse it at the point of booking, and if it is discovered in a sealed carton at sortation the whole consignment is stopped, not just the bottle. The same logic reaches further than most people expect: alcohol-based ayurvedic tonics of the asava and arishta type, and fermented preparations generally, fall on the wrong side of the same line. If you want to send a gift hamper, send the hamper. Dry sweets, sealed savouries, dried fruit, clothing and gift items all travel on this lane every day without any difficulty at all.
Do the Ganga floods actually delay parcels to Patna in the monsoon?
They can, and we say so rather than quoting you a transit band we cannot hold. The line-haul from Bengaluru is rarely the problem — the freight reaches the city on schedule most of the time. What suffers is the last mile. Between July and September the river runs high, and the low-lying colonies inside Patna take standing water for stretches of days at a time. A rider on a two-wheeler cannot reach a waterlogged lane, so the parcel is held at the facility and re-attempted when the water goes down. That can add a day, and in a bad week it can add several. If you are shipping in that window and the item matters — medicines, documents with a date, anything a family is depending on — book express so that the road exposure is short, ship earlier than you think you need to, and watch the tracker rather than the calendar.
What is the cheapest way to send a student's luggage from Bangalore to Patna?
Surface, in properly compressed cartons, booked a week before it is needed. The mechanics matter more than the service you pick. At from ₹120 a kilo the rate is not what makes this expensive — volumetric weight is. Bedding, a mattress topper, quilts and soft luggage measure like furniture and weigh like nothing, and the formula (L × W × H in cm) ÷ 5000 is what you will actually be billed on. Vacuum-bag every soft item, use square cartons rather than tall ones, fill the voids with clothes instead of paper, and you will very often drop an entire weight slab on the same load. Split it into cartons that one person can lift rather than one enormous box, number them, and hand the whole set over together so they travel on the same trunk. Send us the dimensions on WhatsApp before you tape anything shut and we will tell you which number you are going to be charged on.
Tell us the rough weight. We’ll come back in minutes.
Other lanes from Bangalore
A real person at your Bengaluru door, in about an hour.
WhatsApp the pickup address and a rough weight, or call and we will size it with you. The Bengaluru desk is open all night as well as all day, so a hostel move-out finished at midnight can still be collected before the morning trunk closes.