Rathi re-elected VIA president

Nagpur: Suresh Rathi has been re-elected as president of Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA) while Gaurav Sarda has got another chance as secretary. Elections of VIA were held during the 56th annual general body meeting of the association.
RB Goenka, Aditya Saraf and Suhas Budhe were elected as vice-presidents, Naresh Jakhotia as treasurer, Anita Rao and Ashish Doshi as joint secretaries and Hargovind Bajaj, Prafull Doshi, Suresh Agrawal, Rohit Bajaj, Varun Bajaj, Pravin Tapadia, Prashant Kumar Mohota, Satyanarayan Nuwal, Girish Deodhar, Vishal Agrawal, Pankaj Bakshi, Pankaj Sarda, Akash Agrawal, Anil Parakh, Rohit Agrawal,
Rakesh Surana, Ashit Sinha, Hemant Lodha, OS Bagadia, Girdhari Mantri, Pratik Tapadia and Kirit Joshi as office-bearers.
Earlier, Rathi and Sarda presented the annual report for 2019-20. The report contains a brief mention of the activities of the various VIA forums: Agro & Rural Development Forum, Coal Consuming Industry Cell, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Forum, Defence Cell, Economy & Finance Forum, Energy Forum, Entrepreneurship Forum, EXIM Forum, Food Processing Cell, HRD Forum, Industry Institute Interaction Forum, Knowledge Forum, LEW Forum, Marketing Forum, MSME Forum and Taxation & Corporate Law Forum.
In his address, Rathi spoke about how the coronavirus pandemic had hit the industries. “Covid is something which has not shaken us, but the whole world. Temporary closing down of our units was a tough time. VIA tried its best to ensure that industries reopen as soon as government permitted it. Meetings were held with authorities at all levels – right from chief minister to district authorities,” he said.
The VIA chief admitted that many industries were still facing challenges. “Many may be still facing the problem of demand, working capital, migration of labour, missing supply chain link and derailed global trade. For this, talks are going on with various authorities and we hope that all the industries are back to normal by July 15 or 20 subject to following strict lockdown relaxation guidelines,” he said.