5th Edition of Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards program on the 4th of March'16 at Hotel Ashok

PUNE, India - March 30, 2016 - PRLog -- The 5th edition of Awards saw many innovative categories. Here are the innovations:

    For Haulage Fleet owners' segment, the Awards were tailored around Best Growth Strategies, Best Fleet Management Practices and Best Driver Management Practices
    Special focus was given to the Tipper segment with Construction and Mining as sub-categories
    Driver Awards were based on Knowledge and Skill testing through driver camps at various transport hubs across the country to include Medical test, Traffic Rule Test, Psychometric and Psychomotor tests along with interviews with screening and Expert Jury
    Recognized news players who made their mark in short span of time through their unique vision and drive were awarded the Best Emerging Transport Business category award
    Taking engagement of education of the girl child one step further, the Essay Competition for the 1108 Mahindra Saarthi Abhiyaan scholarship awardees took place

The popularity and equity of the awards has further gone up amongst the constituents of the transport community with significantly higher entries collected - 4674 entries (with multiple case studies for different categories) - 38% more than last year!
Ministry of Road Transport & Highways have continued to support our Awards program for the third consecutive year.
Besides higher numbers, the entries also exhibited better quality, more interesting stories and stronger pitch, giving all a feeling that the Transport excellence Awards have come of age.

Highlights of the Awards Ceremony -

•    Mr. Abhay Damle, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. of India, chaired the Panel Discussion on a very pertinent topic  - Making Truck Driving an Attractive Profession- Tackling Driver Shortage. The Panel discussion brought together the who's who of the Transport Industry.

•    The Eminent members of the panel were (L to R)  Mr. Dipak Dash, Asst Editor, Times of India; Dr. Patanjali Nayar, Regional Advisor, World Health Organization; Mr. Rajan Wadhera, President - Truck and Power Train Division, Head - Mahindra Research Valley and Member - Group Executive Board; Mr. Abhay Damle, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways; Prof G Raghuram, Professor and Dean of Faculty, IIM, Ahmedabad; Mr. Piyush Tewari, Founder & CEO, SaveLife Foundation and Mr. Gaurav Agarwal, Amicus Curiae, Supreme Court of India.
•    The audience comprising of prominent Truck Fleets Owners, Transporters and Logistics Company heads and professionals, Commercial Vehicle Financiers, Dealers of Commercial Vehicles, and Senior Delegates from Transport Sector, Faculty members from IIM, Ahmedabad, and delegates from Mahindra Group and heads of various agencies and select media delegates took immense interest and relished the proceedings.

•    Immediately after the formal inauguration of the program with lamp lighting, Mr. Nalin Mehta, CEO, MTBD, presented the report card of the Awards program, reaffirming our commitment to continue, strengthen and make more relevant, this RISE initiative. 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, which is a heartening news. Mr. Amiya Swaroop, Sr. Manager - Advisory, Ernst & Young provided the certification for fairness and transparency from the stage.

The accomplished acapella troupe, RAAGA TRIPPIN delivered a scintillating performance singing and dancing to the rhythms of RISE Anthem.

Mr. Anand Mahindra, our Chairman and Managing Director, expressed his pleasure and in an epoch making speech, stated that over these five years, MTBD has made great efforts to make the awards more inclusive and more meaningful. He recounted the crucial role played by the Road Transport Sector. The fact that it traverses the length and breadth of India's 4.7 million kilometers of roads; it serves the needs of 1.1 billion people - over 90 percent of India's population; it covers the country from North to South, from East to West; it links village to city, farm to factory, backward regions to the mainstream; it gives employment to 8 million people; it contributes almost 5 percent of the nation's GDP. But even more important, it is the silken web that connects Indians to each other. And the fact that, after Bollywood, it is probably the most effective agent of National integration that we have today.

While talking about the Essay completion for Saarthi Abhiyaan awardees, and the fact that supporting daughter's education is the greatest gift that a father can give, he referred three winner truck drivers' daughters as 'Super Laxmis' who changed their father's lives by giving them the opportunity to own a brand new Mahindra BLAZO, with a bit of help from Mahindra Truck and Bus and Mahindra Finance.

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