The story of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Transport Excellence Awards 2013 Ceremony!

Where A Driver wins a truck, A Lady Driver wins all the Hearts and the Drivers' Girl Child wins a Scholarship - read on the full review

It was indeed a red letter day for the Indian Transport Industry where Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Truck and Bus in its bid to drive a positive change, ushered in its third edition of the Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Transport Excellence Awards on 9th January 2014, at The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi, amidst the who's who of the Indian Transport who graced the Occasion which was also supported by MoRTH India (Ministry of Road Transport and Highway). The occasion was formally inaugurated by a light lamping ceremony at the hands of Hon Shri Oscar Fernandes, Union Cabinet Minister of Road Transport & Highways, Govt. of India along with Dr. Goenka, Executive Director & President (AFS), Auto & Farm Equipment Sector, Mr. Rajan Wadhera, CEO TPDS, Mr. Nalin Mehta, MD and CEO Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Truck and Bus and Dr. Bhaskar Das, Group CEO, ZEE Media respectively.

The evening commenced with a Panel discussion on Road Safety presided by the stalwarts of the transport industry namely: Dr. Rohit Baluja, President Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE), Mr. Anil Shukla, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Delhi, Mr. Rajeev Lochan, Director (Road Safety), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. Of India, Mr. Sanjay Bandopadhayaya, the Hon'ble Joint Secretary of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Govt. Of India, Mr. Dinesh Tyagi, Director International Center for Automotive Technology (ICAT), Mr. Rakesh Batra, Partner, Ernst & Young (EY), Mr. Pirojshaw Sarkari, Chief Executive Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Logistics Ltd. respectively where various topics such as improving the traffic conditions with sustainable transport were brought to table.

Interestingly, this season of awards witnessed many firsts that added the whole lot of enthusiasm taking the entire awards ceremony a notch higher. To begin with, for the very first time country's first Lady Truck driver, Ms. Yogita Raghuvanshi was facilitated and handed over a truck Truxo 25 by MTBL. She received an impromptu standing ovation as she narrated her story of the brave heart, daring her way into the world dominated by the male bastion. The most awaited award was indeed the Super Outperformer Winner who chosen winner through the vote-o-meter process. The moment finally arrived when Mr. Mahendra Singh Rajput was announced the winner; whose presence was awaited on stage with Abdul Ghani and Shiv Prasad; the earlier Super Outperformers along with the dignitaries. Started with much passion and zeal is yet another industry first, the new MTBL initiative for driver's daughters, the Girl Child Scholarship under the banner of MAHINDRA SAARTH ABHIYAAN. This pioneering launch was unveiled by Mr. Mehta who read out the message on behalf of Mr. Anand Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. for this occasion. Dr. Pawan Goenka also announced the Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. MPower War Room, a sequel to MPower management development program for the second generation Youth transporters, in a bid to provide the right tools and techniques for the running their business successfully and profitably. The top honors were bagged by prominent CV Financers like ICICI and IndusInd in their category. Adding to these set of awards was another set of awards that were given away known as the Dhaba - Mechanic - Driver Awards. The Fleet Owner awards stole the show with its very new approach wherein there were 16 winners from 8 segments. The award ceremony was one starry night with all outperformers on one stage creating that magical moment.

The evening was an engaging one, as it was interwoven with a mixed bag of entertainment. The first piece of performance by a group of young artists from Prithvi Theater who through their one act play portrayed the life of a Driver. Celebrity dancers, Punit and Lauren the outperforming duo of the Jhalak Dikhla ja, enthralled the audience with their foot tapping performance. Last but not the least, it was Indiva who captured the audiences' senses through their vibrant renditions with the song, "Rise, Mpower and Shine" especially dedicated for the MPower initiative. The awards night came to its fag end with 7 starry eyed youngsters won a Lady Transporter and Youth Personality award.

IN ANOTHER FIRST, OVER 15,000 PEOPLE WITNESSED THE AWARDS CEREMONY LIVE, THROUGH WEBCAST - 2,859 ON DESKTOP AND 12,569 ON THE MOVE

Mahindra Transport Excellence Awards recognize and reward various stakeholders in the trucking industry on parameters like Outperformance, Excellence, Innovation and Change Leadership, judged against the backdrop of RISE pillars, Accepting No Limits, Alternative Thinking and Driving Positive Change. The initiative, with its inclusive nature, has set for it self high standards.

You would be delighted to know that the popularity and equity of the awards has further gone up amongst the constituents of the transport community with significantly higher interest leading to increase in entries collected - over 2300 entries (with multiple case studies for different categories) - 20% more than last year! The two new categories, Spares retailers and the Safety Category (Hazardous and Non-Hazardous goods), introduced at the behest of Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, who have continued to support our Awards program for the second consecutive year, have received overwhelming response. The entries boasted of quality, dedication and consistency. In all 36 nos. Winners made their mark among the key categories, like the Segment specific Fleet Owners (Finished Metal, Dry Bulk, Cement, Automotive Carriers, Tankers, Refrigerated Goods Movement, Open Category), Fleet Drivers, Safety, Youth Transport Personality and Lady Transport Personality.

Highlights of the Awards Ceremony -

• Mr. Sanjay Bandopadhayaya, Joint Secretary, Govt.of India, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways chaired the 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 brought together the who's who of the Transport Industry.
• The Eminent members of the panel were (L to R) Mr. Jasjit Sethi, CEO, TCI Supply Chain Solutions, Prof G. Raghuram, Dean of Faculty, IIM Ahmedabad, Mr. V. L. Patankar, Director, IAHE, Dr. Manoj Singh, Advisor, Niti Ayog, Sourabh Rohilla, Deputy Director, SIAM and Mr. Gaurav Karnik, Partner, Tax & Regulatory Services, Ernst & Young LLP.
• Discussion planned for an hour stretches to 100 minutes. 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 posed various queries to the panel.
• 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. Bharat Rajamani, Director & Solution Champion - Marketing & Advertising Risk Services, provided the Ernst & Young certification for fairness and transparency from the stage.
• Mr. Anand Mahindra, our Chairman and Managing Director, expressed his pleasure on the Rise initiative towards the Truck driver girl child education under Saarthi Abiyaan and the intent of encouraging education so that in their lives, Lakshmi follows the path of Saraswati. While reporting that 1000 scholarships were given in the current financial year, Mr. Mahindra announced that another 1000 scholarships for truck drivers' daughters will be given away in F16 and this, in a small way, will lead to the transformation of the mindset towards women folk specially Girl child - a small step towards "Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Andolan" envisioned by the Prime Minister. Mr. Mahindra recounted all the RISE for Good initiatives of MTBD (Saarthi Abhiyaan, Awards for Drivers/ Dhaba Owners and Mechanics, Encouragement to Lady Truck driver Yogita, Driver Ourperformer League OPL Road shows with Yoga, Medical cards, Safe driving tips, even MPOWER, as an education initiative to drive positive change).
• Followed by Mr. Mahindra's address, Hon. Road Transport & Highways Minister - Shri. Nitin J Gadkari, who presided over this event that his ministry has supported, appreciated the Mahindra CSR initiative for Driver Girl Child Education and Driver Training cum Health care efforts. He then went on to elaborate the ambitions plans of his ministry like construction of 30 km per day of Highways pan-India boosting Indian Road transport network. He also stressed upon modernization of RTO procedures towards Toll permits and vehicle registrations assuring that in future no trucker will have to visit RTO or get stuck at Toll hence leading higher productivity and turnaround in road transportation sector. Eventually, more environment friendly fuel options and technologically advanced vehicles will add upto the Nations growth and development, Shri Gadkari added. Net net, he portrayed that the Road Transport Sector is in for a big boost and repeatedly applauded Mahindra's effort towards the Truck Driver community symbolized by the Mahindra Saarthi Abhiyaan.
• Another highlight was the Safety Awards on the behest of MoRTH, Govt. of India as very rightly instituted for the promoting safe driving or in fact safe transportation across various terrains and climate. And prominent fleet owners like Rhenus Logistics, Dinesh Roadlines and Globe Ecologistics bagged these most coveted awards being first time introduced in the Industry.
• Prominent CV Financiers like ICICI and AXIS Bank take away the top honors in their category.
• Standing ovation to Lady Dhabha Owner - Ms. Ravinder Kaur for her exemplary contribution towards the Truck Drivers on NH-2 by extending state-of-the-art food and rest care facilities and make them feel her Dhaba as "Home away from Home."
• And then came the moment of wining a brand new Mahindra TRUXO 25 truck by Mr. Kumaraswamy and Mr. Thanarasu being the "Super Outperformer Driver of the year" for their tremendous contribution in the making the fleet (CONVERT 8x4  8x2) operate most efficiently leading significant profit gain by their fleet owner. This was really a Double Dhamaka in the presence of erstwhile Super outperformer drivers like Mr. Abdul Gani, Mr. Shiv Prasad and Mr. Mahender Singh Rajput with trail blazing success on their prized trucks that covered various corners of India.
• 8 winners amongst Fleet owners in the 4 categories based on load applications, received their awards during the ceremony:
• Dr. Pawan Goenka, ED and President, AFS, M&M Ltd., highlighted MTBD's contributions towards knowledge power that is doing wonders to the transporters in both their personal and professional lives. The Light of Knowledge initiatives like 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, IIMA, Prof. Debjit Roy, IIMA and Creator of Right Brain Awakening Workshop, the renowned artist and social worker - Ms. Mallika Sarabhai, of Darpana Academy. Dr. Goenka reaffirmed Mahindra's commitment to these Light of Knowledge initiatives and even mentioned that we will persist with them, 'till the industry is interested in them'.
• It was a delight to have the first lady truck driver cum owner - Ms. Yogita Raghuvanshi witnessing another brave heart Lady - Ms. Hema Prava Devi, LPG transporter hailing from North East bagging the most coveted "Lady Transport Personality of the year" Award. Women power making huge in-roads in the male dominant road transport industry.
• Nevertheless, Mr. Vikrant Kapoor of M/s. Kapoor Diesels proved his mettle to bag this year "Youth Transport Personality of the year" award for taking the papa's business in his own vision and culminating to a grand business success, No doubt the Conventional Transport Industry has gained tremendous momentum towards delivering High end results and on the cusp of transformation.
• As a tribute and heartfelt gratitude to the doyens of the industry for the first time ever, the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD was instituted. Mr. Rajan Wadhera, CE - Truck, Power Train Division & Head-MRV, his Concluding Address, highlighted the theme of this coveted award and invited Dr. Goenka to read the citation and announce the name of Mr. D. P. Agarwal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of TCI ltd. taking the Transport Excellence Awards a notch higher as institution. Mr. Chander Agarwal, Jt. MD and his son, received the Award on his behalf.