Dr. Dhanasekaran Mahalingam serves as Chancellor of Takshashila University. He founded the Sri Manakula Vinayagar Group of Institutions in 1999 and has since built it into one of the largest educational consortiums in Puducherry, serving close to 15,000 students across medicine, engineering, nursing, agriculture and business management. Under his leadership, the group has opened twenty institutions over two decades and expanded its annual revenue two hundred times over.

His work in healthcare began in 2006 with the founding of Sri Manakula Vinayagar Hospital, a 1,000-bed facility that now treats roughly 1,200 patients daily and has provided free treatment to three million people to date. He funds a substantial share of this care through revenue generated by his other business interests.

Before SMV Group, he established the Mailam Group of Institutions in 1998, running schools of engineering, hotel management and nursing that have graduated over 7,000 students and awarded scholarships to 2,000 more. In 2016, he entered retail with Indbazaar, an omni-channel grocery business now operating across seven stores in three cities and completing over 350,000 customer transactions a year.

Honorary Positions

President, Pondicherry Private Medical College Association (2010 – Present)

Secretary, Pondicherry Private Engineering College Association (1999 – Present)