Send a parcel from Bangalore to Vellore. We pick up free.
About 215 kilometres east on the old Bengaluru–Chennai highway through Hoskote, Kolar, Mulbagal and Chittoor — 1–2 working days on DTDC surface, and 1–2 by express as well, because at this range the road already beats the aircraft. More than half of what we book on this lane is going to somebody sitting in Vellore for hospital treatment. Pickup is free right across Bengaluru once the parcel is 5 kg or more.
Pickup across Bengaluru, one straight run east, delivery into Vellore town and the campuses.
Pickup, Bengaluru.
Within 60–90 minutes of your call across the core city. The eastern belt — CV Raman Nagar, Mahadevapura, Kadugodi, Varthur and the Old Madras Road stretch out towards Hoskote — is the natural catchment here, and those collections are the quickest of our day because the rider is already pointed at the right highway. Frazer Town and the older central pockets are a comfortable second. The rider carries tape, bubble wrap and a luggage scale, weighs the parcel at your door and seals it in front of you.
Bengaluru sortation.
The parcel goes into DTDC’s Bengaluru facility the same evening. Vellore sits on the Chennai trunk rather than on a branch feeder, which is the structural reason a 215 km lane holds its schedule so tightly — nothing on this route is waiting for a connection to be made somewhere else.
Highway line-haul east.
Out through Hoskote, Kolar and Mulbagal, across the Andhra corner at Palamaner and Chittoor, then down into the Palar valley. It is four-lane the whole way with no ghat crossing and no seasonal closure, and this is one of the shortest intercity legs we publish out of Bengaluru. A parcel collected in the evening is normally on the Vellore hub floor before the next working day is properly under way.
Vellore delivery.
Last-mile off the Vellore hub across the 632xxx pin series — the hospital quarter and Ida Scudder Road, Katpadi and the VIT area, Sathuvachari, Bagayam, Thorapadi and Gandhi Nagar. Note that Vellore district was split in 2019: Ranipet, Arcot and Walajapet, and Ambur, Vaniyambadi and Tirupattur further east, now sit in their own districts and are worked on their own runs. Give us the six-digit pin, not the district name.
POD on WhatsApp.
The proof of delivery — signature image, stamped slip or a photo at the door — reaches you on WhatsApp within the hour. On a lane this short it frequently arrives before the person who sent the parcel has thought to ask about it.
Starting rates, Bangalore → Vellore.
Final price depends on actual or volumetric weight, whichever is greater, plus the fuel surcharge in force on your booking date. GST is extra.
- Standard parcel (surface) from ₹120 / kg 1–2 working days. Min billable 5 kg.
- Express parcel (air) from ₹180 / kg 1–2 working days. Door delivery.
- Bulk consignment (35 kg+) from ₹120 / kg Min 35 kg. Surface routing.
Pickup is free across Bengaluru on this lane for parcels 5 kg and above. Volumetric weight is worked out as (L × W × H cm) ÷ 5000. Be honest with yourself about express here — at 215 km both services land in the same 1–2 day band, so the ₹60 a kilo extra buys priority handling and a booking that is flagged rather than a different delivery date. The one thing that genuinely does move the date is the hour you hand the parcel over, which is why the desk stays open all night.
Hospital paperwork, parcels for attendants, campus deliveries and leather-trade documents.
Medical records, scans and prior reports
Vellore is a referral town, and the Christian Medical College draws patients from every state in the country. A large share of this lane is paperwork that has to reach the patient before the consultation does — earlier discharge summaries, CT and MRI films, biopsy and histopathology reports, insurance pre-authorisation files, employer letters. Send these express with the attendant’s mobile on the AWB, not a hospital department number, and tell us the appointment date so the consignment gets flagged rather than riding the ordinary queue. Films travel best flat between two sheets of stiff board.
Parcels for patients and attendants staying on
Treatment in Vellore is rarely a single day. Families take a room in a lodge or a service flat near the hospital for weeks at a stretch, and the parcels that follow them are the ordinary things nobody packed for a stay that turned out longer than expected — bedding, warm clothes, a rice cooker, kitchen basics, a phone charger, books for a child who came along. Address these with the lodge name, the room number and a live mobile; the note below explains why that matters more here than almost anywhere.
Student parcels to the Katpadi campuses
Vellore Institute of Technology at Katpadi pulls students from across India, and a great many of them route their supply line through an elder sibling, a cousin or a family friend already working in Bengaluru. Laptops and monitors, project hardware, lab coats, sports kit, bedding at the start of term and the whole reverse flow at the end of it. Put the student’s own mobile and hostel block on the AWB — a campus mail room will not sign for a parcel it cannot phone in.
Leather and footwear trade samples
The Palar belt has tanned and finished leather for over a century, and the cluster around Ambur, Vaniyambadi and Ranipet supplies footwear and leather goods to buyers well beyond Tamil Nadu. What moves out of Bengaluru is the small end of that trade — buyer specifications, approved swatches and colour cards, hardware and buckle samples, lasts, signed purchase orders and shipping documents against an export order. Small, urgent, and usually with a buyer’s deadline attached. Note that Ambur and Ranipet are separate delivery points from Vellore city.
Industrial spares for the Ranipet estates
The SIPCOT complex at Ranipet and the workshops strung along the Chennai highway keep a constant demand for the small, expensive things that stop a line — bearings, seals, gauges, instrument spares, a repaired motor going back to the customer, a control card. These book in the evening and are at the works the next day. Two conditions: drain anything holding oil before it is packed, and give us a stores contact with the goods-inward window, because industrial gates close a long time before the offices do.
Household and family parcels
Vellore, Katpadi, Gudiyatham and the towns along the Palar have a steady working population in Bengaluru, and 215 km is close enough that the parcel habit is weekly rather than seasonal. Prescription strips with the pharmacy bill and a copy of the prescription, a replacement phone with the SIM fitted, school books, festival clothes before Pongal, documents needing a wet-ink signature. Regular senders should take a standing pickup slot rather than calling in cold each week.
A short, real list.
Nothing in the first card moves on DTDC or on any air-linked network, in any packaging. The second card is the set of refusals we actually see on Bengaluru → Vellore, and on a lane that runs on hospitals and tanneries they are not the ones we see anywhere else:
Banned outright
- Liquids of any kind — syrups, lotions, oils, perfumes
- Aerosols and pressurised cans
- Corrosive chemicals, acids, alkalis and tannery solutions
- Flammable solvents, dyes, thinners and adhesives
- Currency notes, gold and silver bullion
- Biological and pathology specimens of every description
Common Bengaluru → Vellore misjudgements
- Medicines beyond what a courier may carry — the most frequent conversation on this lane. Sealed tablet and capsule strips in their original pack, with the pharmacy bill and a copy of the prescription inside the carton, are accepted on domestic surface. Liquid syrups, drops and lotions are liquids and are refused. Injectables, vials, insulin and anything needing a cold chain cannot travel on a parcel network at all, because there is no temperature control anywhere in the movement. Habit-forming and narcotic-schedule drugs are excluded outright. If a treating unit has asked for a specific medicine, photograph the pack and send it to us before you book.
- Blood, tissue and pathology samples — people assume that because reports move freely the samples can follow. They cannot. Diagnostic and biological specimens are a regulated category requiring a licensed medical-transport chain with validated packaging, and a general parcel network is not one. Reports, films, slides in a sealed reader box and scan CDs are all fine.
- Tannery and finishing chemicals — chrome salts, syntans, dyestuff samples, degreasers and finishing solvents ride along with a leather consignment more often than you would think, usually as "just a small sample bottle". They are corrosive or flammable, they are refused at the counter, and they take the rest of the consignment down with them. Send the swatches and the paperwork; source the chemistry locally.
- Wet-salted hides and untreated leather — finished leather, cut components, lasts and made-up samples travel without any trouble. Raw or wet-salted hide is a different thing entirely: it carries brine and moisture, it smells, and it is refused. Fully finished and dry is the test.
- A hospital-bag parcel with hand sanitiser and spirit in it — packed with the best intentions by families sending things to an attendant. Alcohol-based sanitiser, surgical spirit and antiseptic solution are flammable liquids and fail the counter check on their own. Send the clothes, the bedding and the dry provisions; buy the rest from the pharmacy across the road.
AWB on WhatsApp. Track on dtdc.in. POD when it lands.
Your AWB number reaches you on WhatsApp the moment the parcel is booked into DTDC, and it is live on the public tracker at dtdc.in from that point. The delivery proof follows within the hour of the drop. Two Vellore-specific notes are worth more than any tracking advice. First, the streets around the hospital are dense, one-way in parts and packed with lodges, and a very large share of recipients here are temporary residents rather than householders — a parcel addressed to a person and a street, with no lodge name, room number or working phone, will not be completed on the first attempt, and the desk staff will not sign for a guest they cannot identify. Second, if the recipient is an inpatient, address the parcel to the attendant staying outside rather than to a ward, because riders do not deliver into wards and a consignment left at a hospital reception is nobody’s responsibility. Give us a name, a room, a landmark and a live mobile and this lane lands first attempt almost every time.
Specific to Bangalore → Vellore.
Can I courier medicines and medical reports to someone getting treated in Vellore?
Reports, yes, freely — discharge summaries, CT and MRI films, histopathology and lab reports, scan CDs and insurance files all travel normally, and express with the attendant’s mobile on the AWB is the sensible booking. Medicines are narrower than most senders expect. Sealed tablet and capsule strips in their original manufacturer pack travel on domestic surface if you put the pharmacy bill and a copy of the prescription inside the carton. What cannot go is anything liquid — syrups, drops, lotions, antiseptic — because liquids are refused across the network regardless of packaging. Injectables, vials, insulin and any cold-chain medicine cannot travel on a parcel service at all, since there is no refrigeration at any point in the movement, and habit-forming or narcotic-schedule drugs are excluded outright. Blood and tissue samples are a separate regulated category and need a licensed medical courier. When in doubt, send us a photograph of the pack on WhatsApp before you book and we will tell you yes or no in a minute.
Surface and express are both 1–2 days to Vellore. What does paying for express actually buy me?
Priority, not a different date — and we would rather say that plainly than sell you an upgrade that does nothing. At 215 km Vellore is inside a single road leg off the Bengaluru hub, so a surface parcel handed over before the evening cut-off is already on the next working day’s delivery run; there is no aircraft that can improve on that. What express does buy is handling order: an express consignment is separated at sortation, moves at the front of the queue and is less likely to slip a day if volumes spike around Pongal, Deepavali or a long weekend. Our honest advice for this lane is to book surface, hand the parcel over early, and put the ₹60 a kilo into better packing instead. The exception is a consignment with a hard appointment or submission date, where the priority handling is worth having as insurance.
How should I address a parcel to a lodge near the hospital, or to a hostel at the Katpadi campus?
Both need more than a street address, and for the same reason: the recipient is a temporary resident and the person at the counter has no way to identify them. For a lodge or service flat near the hospital, write the recipient’s full name, their mobile number, the room number, the lodge name and then the street and pin. Without a room number the front desk will usually refuse to accept it, and without a live phone the rider cannot get anyone to come down. For a hostel at Katpadi, write the student’s full name and mobile, then the hostel block and room, then the institute, then the pin — the block matters, because the campus is large and mail is handled block-side rather than centrally. In both cases put a landmark on the address as well. A parcel that fails an attempt on this lane does not fail because the network is slow; it fails because nobody could be phoned.
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 we will take it down. The Bengaluru desk runs 24×7, which matters on this lane more than the price does — a hospital parcel handed over at eleven at night still catches the same delivery day as one booked at noon.