Send a parcel from Bangalore to Port Blair. We pick up free.
There is no road to the Andamans. Every parcel that reaches Port Blair does so by air or by ship out of Chennai or Kolkata, and that single fact sets everything else — 7–10 working days on the surface service, 4–6 by air express, and a hard rule that nothing perishable belongs in the box. Free pickup at 5 kg and above anywhere in Bengaluru; this lane books heavily off the north of the city — Yelahanka, Jalahalli, Hebbal and Sanjaynagar.
Collected in north Bengaluru, moved to the mainland gateway, then flown or shipped across the Bay of Bengal.
Pickup, Bengaluru.
Yelahanka, Jalahalli, Hebbal and Sanjaynagar are the addresses this lane originates from most often — the north of the city, where a great deal of the defence, aerospace and public-sector workforce lives. The rider is with you in 60–90 minutes outside peak hours. Packing is done properly at your door, because a consignment that will be craned, containerised or screened for a flight is handled far more times than a road parcel: corner protection, double-taped seams, waterproof inner wrap on anything that would suffer from damp, and a written weight before sealing.
Bengaluru sortation.
Same-evening handover into the DTDC Bengaluru facility. From here the consignment moves to the mainland gateway rather than onto a long trunk road — a short overnight run east to the Chennai side, which is the point every Andaman shipment has to pass through whichever service you have booked.
The crossing — air or sea.
Express goes by air: a scheduled flight into Port Blair's Veer Savarkar airport, which is what makes the 4–6 day band possible at all. The surface service goes by ship out of Chennai or Kolkata, and the sailing itself takes around three days at sea before anything is even landed and cleared. That is the whole reason the surface band on this lane is 7–10 working days rather than the 5–6 you would see on a mainland route of comparable difficulty — you are not waiting on distance, you are waiting on a sailing schedule.
Port Blair delivery.
Last-mile across the 744xxx pin series — Aberdeen Bazaar and the commercial centre, Haddo, Delanipur, Phoenix Bay, Junglighat, Dollygunj, Garacharma and the Prothrapur side, plus the service and government colonies. The town is compact and delivers cleanly. Everything beyond it — north up the Andaman Trunk Road, or across to the ferry islands — is a separate proposition and is covered in the questions below.
POD on WhatsApp.
The proof of delivery — a signature, a stamped slip or a photograph at the door — reaches your WhatsApp thread within the hour of the consignment being handed across.
Starting rates, Bangalore → Port Blair.
Charged on actual or volumetric weight, whichever is greater, with the fuel surcharge current on your booking date. GST is added on top.
- Standard parcel (surface) from ₹120 / kg 7–10 working days. Min billable 5 kg.
- Express parcel (air) from ₹180 / kg 4–6 working days. Door delivery.
- Bulk consignment (35 kg+) from ₹120 / kg Min 35 kg. Sea routing.
We collect at no charge from any Bengaluru address at 5 kg or more. Volumetric weight is (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000. On an island lane the choice between the two services is unusually clear-cut: the air leg is bounded by a flight schedule and holds its band well, while the sea leg is bounded by a sailing schedule, so a surface consignment that just misses a departure waits for the next one — which is exactly why the published surface band is a three-day range rather than a one-day one. Rough weather in the Bay of Bengal, and the monsoon months in particular, can extend it further. If a date matters, book air and do not think about it again.
Supplies for families posted to the islands, tourism-trade stock, spares that cannot be bought locally, and student paperwork.
Parcels to families posted to the islands
The steadiest traffic on this lane by a wide margin. Port Blair carries a large government and services population — a tri-services command, coast guard and naval establishments, the territorial administration, the forest and fisheries departments, teachers, doctors and bank staff — and postings there are usually for a fixed tenure with a family following. What moves is everything a household needs that the islands do not stock: clothing and footwear in specific sizes, school and exam material, kitchen equipment, medicines in original packaging with a prescription copy, and the small comforts people miss. Bengaluru's own defence and aerospace belt in the north of the city is where much of it is sent from.
Things you simply cannot buy on the island
This is the real character of the lane and worth understanding before you compare prices. Almost everything sold in Port Blair arrived by ship, retail choice is narrow, and anything specialised — a particular laptop model, a camera lens, a specific spare part, a machine component, an appliance in a size the local market does not carry — is ordered from the mainland as a matter of course. That makes this a lane where people ship deliberately and plan around the transit rather than treating a courier as an afterthought. Order early, order once, and pack it to survive a sea crossing.
Tourism-trade and hospitality stock
Tourism is the island economy's public face — the Cellular Jail memorial and its evening show in the town, the dive and beach operations on the ferry islands — and the businesses around it restock from the mainland continuously. Printed collateral and signage, linen and uniforms, dive and snorkel accessories, café and kitchen equipment, POS and billing hardware, souvenir and retail lines. It is bulky and light, it prices on volumetric weight almost every time, and it should be booked well ahead of a season rather than during one.
Spares, tools and technical equipment
Boats, generators, air conditioning, dive compressors, water systems and vehicles all fail on the islands and the parts for them almost never exist locally. Bengaluru is a natural source, and this lane carries a constant flow of pumps, filters, belts, bearings, electrical components, tools and instrument spares. These are dense, heavy consignments that suit the sea leg well. Send a tax invoice with anything commercial, generate an e-way bill where the value crosses the threshold, and drain and clean anything that has held fuel or oil before it goes in the box.
Student and admission paperwork
The islands send students to Bengaluru's colleges and take back a flow of documents and equipment. Mark sheets, transcripts, admission and verification files, laptops going for a repair or a warranty replacement, books before a term, bedding and trunks at the end of one. Anything with a date attached goes on express as a matter of course — on a lane where surface can take ten working days, a document posted casually will not make a deadline.
Festival and gifting parcels, sent early
Families separated by a posting still send things for Diwali, Christmas, Onam, Pongal and Durga Puja, and the islands have communities that mark all of them. The only rule that matters here is timing: work back from the date and add a week to whatever feels comfortable, because a festival parcel that arrives four days late on a ten-day lane was booked four days too late, not shipped badly. Dry sweets in factory packaging, clothing, toys, decorations and books all travel well. The wet and fresh versions do not — see below.
A short, real list.
The first card is refused across the DTDC network. The second is specific to an island lane, and the last item on it is the one people ask about most — because it applies to what you might want to send back:
Banned outright
- Perishables, chilled and frozen goods of any kind
- Liquids — oils, syrups, sauces, perfume, sanitiser
- Aerosols and pressurised cans
- Flammable liquids, fuel and lighter refills
- Alcohol, wine and spirits
- Currency, bullion and unset gemstones
Common Bengaluru → Port Blair misjudgements
- Any food that is not dry and factory-sealed — this is the item to take seriously on this lane. Homemade sweets, wet chutney and pickle in oil, ghee, curd-based mithai, fresh produce: a shipment that spends up to ten working days in transit, part of it in a container at sea in a humid climate, will not deliver them in a state anyone wants. Sealed dry snacks, packaged mithai with a manufacturing date, coffee and spice powders, dry fruit and vacuum-packed biscuits all travel fine. Nothing else does.
- Plants, saplings, seeds and soil — sent by people setting up a home on a posting. The islands are an ecologically sensitive territory with their own quarantine considerations, and live plant material and soil are not parcel-service cargo. Send pots, tools and dry planting media instead and buy the plants locally.
- Loose power banks, spare lithium cells and drone batteries — a battery installed inside its own device is accepted; a bare cell, a separate power bank, or a drone with the pack fitted is not, and nothing above 100 Wh goes on the air leg. On an island lane a refused consignment does not simply come back tomorrow, so declare every battery at the time of booking.
- Generator and outboard spares that still hold fuel — a genuine category here, and a genuine problem. A carburettor, a fuel pump or a used engine part with residue in it is treated as a flammable-liquid item. Flush it, drain it, let it dry for a day and send it clean, with the fuel lines capped.
- Seashells, coral, sand and marine curios, on the return leg — asked about constantly by visitors, so it belongs here. Coral and a range of marine shells are protected species and collecting or moving them is restricted under wildlife law; beach sand is not something we will book either. We do not carry any of it, in either direction. Buy licensed handicrafts from a proper outlet with a bill and we will happily ship those.
AWB on WhatsApp. Track on dtdc.in. POD when it lands.
You get the AWB on WhatsApp as soon as the consignment is booked, the run stays visible on dtdc.in, and the delivery proof comes back on the same thread. Two things about tracking an island shipment differ from the mainland and are worth expecting. On the sea service, the scan history goes quiet for a stretch while the consignment is actually at sea — that is normal and not a sign that anything is lost; movement resumes once it is landed. And the town itself is officially named Sri Vijaya Puram, renamed in 2024, though Port Blair remains in everyday use and on most addresses; either name will deliver, so use whichever the recipient gave you. Beyond that the usual rules apply with more force than usual: put a working mobile number on the AWB, name the colony, quarter or establishment rather than only the pin, and if the delivery is to a service or government address, include the department and the block, because a gate without a phone number is where an island parcel loses a day it can least afford.
Specific to Bangalore → Port Blair.
Why does surface take 7–10 days when there is no road involved at all?
Because the crossing is by ship, and a ship runs to a sailing schedule rather than to a daily departure. Your parcel is collected in Bengaluru, moved to the mainland gateway on the Chennai side, consolidated for a sailing, spends roughly three days at sea, and is then landed and moved through the port before last-mile delivery in town. If it arrives at the gateway just after a departure, it waits for the next one, and that waiting — not the distance — is what makes the honest band a three-day range instead of a fixed number. Rough weather in the Bay of Bengal can stretch it further, particularly through the monsoon. Express avoids all of it by flying: a scheduled flight into Port Blair puts the consignment on the island in 4–6 working days regardless of when a ship is sailing. The practical rule on this lane is simple. Heavy, bulky, not urgent — send it by sea and book it early. Anything with a date, anything valuable, anything small and dense — send it by air, because the price difference is small next to what a missed sailing costs you.
Can you deliver beyond Port Blair — Havelock, Neil, Rangat, Mayabunder, Diglipur?
Some of them, and the honest answer depends on which direction you are going. North Andaman — Baratang, Rangat, Mayabunder and Diglipur — is reached overland from Port Blair by the Andaman Trunk Road, which passes through a protected tribal reserve and is run in timed convoys with restricted stopping. Deliveries up that road happen on their own schedule and add working days rather than hours, so give us the exact destination when you enquire and we will time it properly. Havelock and Neil, now Swaraj Dweep and Shaheed Dweep, are reached only by ferry and are handled as a separate leg again. The Nicobar group is a restricted area and is not a general delivery destination — do not assume a booking to Port Blair will reach it. Book to the real final address, tell us what it is at the enquiry stage rather than after the parcel has moved, and put a mobile number on it for someone who is actually on that island.
Do I need a permit, and can I send my luggage ahead of a holiday?
Permits are a traveller question rather than a parcel question. Indian citizens do not need a permit to visit Port Blair and the main tourist islands, foreign nationals require a restricted-area permission for the territory, and certain tribal reserve and Nicobar areas are closed to visitors regardless of nationality. None of that affects an ordinary domestic consignment into Port Blair, which moves on the same paperwork as any other interstate shipment. Sending luggage ahead is a genuinely good idea on this route, given what island flights charge for excess baggage — but do it with the transit in mind. Book air, send it at least a clear week before you travel, address it to the hotel or guest house by name with your check-in date noted and your own mobile on the AWB, and confirm with the property first that they will hold it. Do not send anything you cannot travel without: keep medicines, documents and your camera with you, and ship the bulk. And do not address a parcel to an island you have not yet arranged to reach.
Tell us the rough weight. We’ll come back in minutes.
A real person at your Bengaluru door, in about an hour.
WhatsApp us the pickup address and a rough weight, or call and tell us the date it has to be there by — on an island lane that is the only number that really decides whether you should be flying it or shipping it. The Bengaluru desk runs 24×7.