The Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA), the apex dealer body in India, today handed over its Lifetime Contribution Award to Venu Srinivasan, chairman, TVS Motor Company, for his immense contribution to the Indian automobile industry.
The award was conferred upon him as part of FADA’s 10th Auto Summit which was held on February 9, 2018 at Le Meridian, New Delhi.
Receiving the award, Srinivasan said, “I am really very happy to receive this Lifetime Contribution Award as TVS and FADA go long back since the time my uncle T S Santhanam became the first president of FADA in 1964. I started my own career as a technician in a dealership workshop and, as a matter of fact, all my current dealerships are members of FADA."
"Sensing the disruption which is not far off, I would urge two-wheeler dealerships to start networking with local technicians and use their skills to leverage the business as opposed to looking upon them as competition. I would also suggest passenger vehicle dealerships to come together, consolidate and bring in professionals to manage the show as in the time to come, it will be really difficult for small dealers to survive.”
As part of the FADA delegation (as seen in the above photo), John K Paul, president, FADA; Nikunj Sanghi, chairman, Auto Summit 2018; KVS Prakash Rao, director, Auto Summit 2018 and C S Vigneshwar, director – FADA Academy, visited TVS Motor Co's headquarters in Chennai and handed over the award to Srinivasan. H Lakshmanan, executive director, Sundaram Clayton, was also present during the ceremony.
FADA, founded in 1964, represents 15,000 automobile dealers, which in turn have approximately 25,000 dealerships, including 26 associations of automobile dealers at the regional, state and city levels, accounting for over 90 percent of the retail automobile trade in India and providing direct employment to over 1.8 million people across the country.