Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd (M&M), part of the $20.7 billion Mahindra Group, recently conducted raids at four retail outlets in the districts of Viluppuram and Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. The raid was conducted in a bid to counter the ever-growing threat of counterfeit spare parts in the market, across the country.
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Chennai:
Mahindra has systematically and consistently campaigned against the sale of spurious spare parts in the open market. The company raided retail shops – Durga Agencies, Dinesh Auto, Ali Auto Spares and Abirami Auto Spares, who were stocking and procuring counterfeit Mahindra spare parts from spurious manufacturers.
The retail outlets were selling the spurious goods in and around Viluppuram and Kanchipuram districts of Tamil Nadu. The company has successfully confiscated different transmission parts amounting to a total count of 123 units.
Till date, the company has conducted over 96 successful raids across the country, in a period of 4 years and intends to expand such actions to newer territories in this financial year. These operations have been carried out jointly with the police and specialist agencies appointed by the company for this purpose. For automakers, the biggest concern is that counterfeit parts can make vehicles unsafe, from braking failure to triggering a fire.
Today the open market is contaminated with spurious parts and customer awareness is the key to curb the sale of these counterfeit products.
As a strategy, Mahindra will educate its consumers on the use of genuine parts and continue to crack down on spurious suppliers. It has also launched regular mechanic and retailer meets and various outreach programmes through its spare parts distributors.