Ludhiana Management Association (LMA) celebrated its 41st Anniversary & Annual Awards Distribution at a ceremony today. Mr Bandaru Dattatreya, Governor of Himachal Pradesh was the Chief Guest and conferred Six Annual Awards instituted by LMA and sponsored by Vardhman Group, Hero Cycles, Trident Group, Avon Cycles, Eastman Enterprises & Bharti Airtel.Dr. Paramjit Kaur, General Secretary, LMA explained the rationale for awarding respected business men, professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs of the region, as LMA over a period of four decades identified and acknowledged the contribution of business leaders in terms of generating employment, introducing professionalism, adopting State of the Art R&D for launching products and services of global standards and also taking up social responsibility initiatives on an ongoing basis.LMA President Kamal Wadhera, expressed his gratitude to Mr Bandaru Dattatreya, for honouring LMA Achievers, as this would be a special occasion for the awardees to be honoured by a statesman who is self made, a political entrepreneur and a person known and respected for his humility, simplicity and perseverance. Mr Wadhera also highlighted the role played by LMA as a platform for sharing of experiential knowledge, business networking and fostering the spirit of excellence and achievement. He shared that LMA had had the privilege of being mentored by the most respected business leaders of global stature like Mr. Brij Mohan Lall Munjal, Mr. S.P. Oswal, Mr. O.P. Munjal and also the patronage of leading corporate of the region who are now global players.Bandaru Dattatreya, while addressing the audience said, Knowledge is now the most important resource for the development of any economy, and therefore its creation and dissemination should be the universal focus of policy makers, organisations, academicians and professionals. He emphasised that the process for transformation to a knowledge driven economy, was contingent on our efforts to develop the 4 Knowledge Economy Pillars, i.e Economic Incentive & Institutional Regime, Education & Labour, Innovation and Information & Communications Technology. He maintained that while it is important for a Nation to take concrete steps to improve its ranking at the global level, it is all the more important for land locked states like Punjab, Haryana and Himachal to create a sound base for development of knowledge economy.
Bandaru Dattatreya asserted that it was important for LMA to involve entrepreneurs, academicians, practicing managers & students, and administration for the promotion of knowledge based entrepreneurship in the region. He appreciated the role played by LMA in creating a robust mechanism to support learning and entrepreneurship. He hoped that this region could become the global hub for R&D in the agriculture, textile & light engineering sectors due to availability of skilled manpower and necessary infrastructure and institutional support .Mr Gaurav Sarup, Chairman Marshall Machines , delivered the keynote address on the theme, Cloud Based Universal Machine Monitoring (UMM) for Smart Manufacturing. He emphasised that UMM was the low hanging fruit that manufacturers must adopt due to its low cost, quick implementation and immediate returns in terms of increased productivity and reduction in planned and unplanned down time. He maintained that unplanned stoppages of work led to production loss, delayed dispatches, wasted labor and upset customers. He believed that industry was perhaps delaying the adoption of UMM due to misplaced notions about its cost and complexity. Sarup asserted that UMM leads to well analysed reports which allow managers to initiate action and bring about massive improvements in OEE on the parameters of availability, performance and quality.The awardees were felicitated by the Honourable Governor Mr Bandaru Dattatreya and LMA President Kamal Wadhera, Capt. VK Syall, Mr. Inderjit Nagpal, Mr. D.K.Sindhwani.Distinguished Awardees of the year 2018 are LMA - Vardhman Award for Entrepreneur of the Year to Mr.Paritosh Garg, MD Happy Forgings, LMA - Dayanand Munjal Manager of the Year Award to Mr. Sushil Jhamb, Director (Raw Materials Vardhman Textiles Ltd., LMA - Trident Award for Young Innovative Entrepreneur - to Mr. Ravi Garg., CEO, Master Software Solutions, LMA - Sat Paul Mittal Life Time Achievement Award to Mr. D.S.Bhogal, Chairman Bhogal Group, LMA - Hari Chand Award for Corporate Citizen to Mr. Onkar Singh Pahwa, Chairman, Avon Cycles, Ludhiana, LMA - Sohan Lal Pahwa Award for Emerging SME to Mr. Gaurav Sarup, Chairman, Marshal Machines.Dr. Sandip Kapur, Sr. Vice President proposed the Vote of Thanks to the Chief Guest Mr Bandaru Dattatreya for setting the agenda for LMA Members to collaborate and contribute in the development of a Knowledge Society in the region. He also expressed gratitude to the Awardees, Sponsors, District Administration, Members of the Executive Committee and the Members for making the event a success.