Transport industry stars honored for fourth year running
Mahindra continued to underscore its commitment to the Indian transportation sector with the fourth edition of the Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards program, where the stalwarts of the country’s transport domain were honored and given a chance to hog the limelight. The latest edition of the event, Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards 2014, was held on February 25 at its traditional venue in New Delhi, attended by the who’s who of the Indian road transport sector, to reward a deserving set of outperformers in the industry.
Spearheaded by Mahindra’s Truck and Bus Division (MTBD), Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards recognize and reward various stakeholders in the trucking industry based on parameters like Outperformance, Excellence, Innovation and Change Leadership, judged against the backdrop of Mahindra’s three RISE pillars – Accepting No Limits, Alternative Thinking and Driving Positive Change. The initiative, with its inclusive nature, has set for itself high standards which have become steeper with each year’s edition.
Since inception of the Awards in 2011, its popularity has grown amongst the constituents of the transport community with significantly higher interest, leading to increase in the number of entries collected. The fourth edition received over 2,300 entries with multiple case studies for different categories which is 20 per cent higher than last year. The edition also saw the introduction of two new award categories, namely, Spares Retailer and Safety (Hazardous and Non-Hazardous goods) introduced at the behest of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH), which supported the Awards program for the second consecutive year. While all the entries boasted of quality, dedication and consistency, 36 winners in all made their mark among the key categories, including segment-specific Fleet Owners, Fleet Drivers, Safety, Youth Transport Personality and Lady Transport Personality.
The program commenced with a panel discussion on very lively and interesting topics – ‘Is India Ready for Global Road Transport Practices?’ and ‘Role of Road Transport in Multimodal Transport Solutions’. The panel discussion, chaired by Mr. Sanjay Bandopadhayaya, Joint Secretary, Government of India, MoRTH, brought together the doyens of the transport sector who kept the audience in rapt attention with their detailed discussions on the chosen topics. As the discussion which was initially planned for an hour stretched to nearly 100 minutes, the audience comprising prominent truck fleet owners, transporters, heads and professionals from logistics companies, CV financiers, CV dealers, senior delegates from the transport sector, faculty members from IIM-Ahmedabad, delegates from the Mahindra Group, heads of various agencies and select media invitees took immense interest and posed various queries to the panel, all resulting in a thought-provoking session to precede the awards ceremony.
The main event followed, with Mr. Nalin Mehta, CEO, MTBD, presenting the report card of the Awards program, reaffirming Mahindra’s commitment to continue, strengthen and make its RISE initiative more relevant in the years to come. He shared with the audience the fact that the Awards program was becoming bigger and better with every passing year and was attracting better quality entries.
Mr. Bharat Rajamani, Director & Solution Champion – Marketing & Advertising Risk Services, E&Y, then provided the Ernst & Young certification for fairness and transparency of the awards process.
Mr. Anand Mahindra, Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra Group, expressed his pleasure on the ‘Rise’ initiative towards education aid for girl children of truck drivers under the ‘Saarthi Abiyaan’ scheme. While reporting that 1,000 scholarships were given away in the current financial year, he announced that another 1,000 scholarships for truck drivers’ daughters would be given away in 2016, and this, in a small way, would lead to the transformation of people’s mindset towards women folk, specially girl children – a small step towards the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Andolan’ slogan envisioned by the Prime Minister.
Following Mr. Mahindra’s address, Mr. Nitin J. Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport & Highways, who was the chief guest on the occasion, appreciated Mahindra’s ‘Saarthi Abiyaan’ CSR initiative and its efforts towards driver training and driver healthcare. He then went on to elaborate the ambitions plans of his Ministry, including construction of 30 km of highway roads per day pan-India to boost the country’s road network. He also stressed upon the modernization of RTO procedures towards toll permits and vehicle registrations, assuring that in future truckers would not have to visit an RTO or get stuck at toll booths. This would result in higher productivity, faster turnaround time and thus higher profits.
The first set of Awards, including for Safety, CV Financiers, Dhaba Owners, Super Outperformer Driver of the Year and Fleet Owners, were given away.
Dr. Pawan Goenka, Executive Director and President, AFS, M&M, highlighted MTBD’s contributions towards knowledge power that is doing wonders to transporters in both their personal and professional lives. Mahindra’s ‘Light of Knowledge’ initiatives such as MPOWER, WAR ROOM and MENTORS’ SUMMIT, which are the signature properties of MTBD with IIM-Ahmedabad as the knowledge partner, were showcased in the presence of Prof. G. Raghuram, Dean of faculty, IIM-A, Prof. Debjit Roy, IIM-A, and Creator of Right Brain Awakening Workshop, the renowned artist and social worker – Ms. Mallika Sarabhai of Darpana Academy.
Dr. Goenka also reaffirmed Mahindra’s commitment to these ‘Light of Knowledge’ initiatives and promised to continue pursuing them as long as the industry shows interest.
The last part of the event saw the prestigious Lady Transport Personality of the year Award and Youth Transport Personality of the year Award given away while the audience was treated to an exciting climax to conclude the night. The first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award of the Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards was conferred upon Mr. D.P. Agarwal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, TCI Ltd., as a fitting tribute to one of the most renowned and respected persons in the industry.
Mr. Rajan Wadhera, Chief Executive – Truck, Power Train Division & Head-MRV, highlighted the theme of this coveted and special award and invited Dr. Goenka to read the citation and announce the name of the recipient, following which Mr. Chander Agarwal, Joint Managing Director, TCI, and son of Mr. D.P. Agarwal, received the Award on his behalf.
The Awards ceremony was also witnessed by over 15,000 viewers through a live webcast which further multiplied the reach and popularity of the event. Overall, MTBD’s signature brand property, Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards, has truly established itself as a perfect platform to honor the unsung heroes of Indian road transport as it continues to recognize the efforts of the various stakeholders in the country’s road transport ecosystem.