The newly formed Federation of IT Association Gujarat (FITAG) has announced the names of its board members. Kaushik Pandya, President of Ahmedabad Computer Merchant Association (ACMA) has been officially elected as the President of FITAG while Ketan Patel, President of South Gujarat Information Technology Association (SITA) will be VP. Yogesh Thakkar, President of Baroda Information Technology Association (BITA) has been elected as FITAG's General Secretary and Gaurang Vyas, President of Gandhinagar IT Association will shoulder the responsibility of the Treasurer.

Pandya said, “FITAG is a statewide federation of the local associations in Gujarat, which will address the problems facing each of these bodies in a unified manner. Each and every IT association from the state will actively participate in the development of the federation. We will organize regular meetings to update our members about any new initiatives undertaken by FITAG.” IT associations across Gujarat gathered on July 12 in Ahmedabad for a general body meeting. They held a discussion on the setting up of FITAG and the immediate activities it ought to undertake. It was decided that the each local association would elect one member to represent it on FITAG's executive council.

According to the rules made by the federation, all associations in Gujarat can be FITAG members. However membership will not be given to individuals or a single organization. FITAG would be headquartered in Ahmedabad, as it is a commercial hub of Gujarat and initially all its activities will be carried from the office premises of ACMA. The FITAG executive council will again meet up in the second week of August to finalize the structure of the federation and announce the roadmap for the year.

This is the third instance in the country when local associations in a state have come together to form a federation. The other two, besides FITAG, are Confederation of IT Associations (Confed-ITA) in Tamil Nadu and the UP Computer Dealers Association (UPCDW). So is this trend of having a unified single body in the state truly beneficial to the channel partners? Yes, said S Karthikeyan, President of Confed ITA. “Our voice will be heard by vendors and government agencies better when we can vocalize it on a stronger platform. Our federation has nearly 1,000 partners as members. If we count 10 employees per partner, then 10,000 powerful voices will emerge. It will definitely become easier to address our member's problems and unsolved issues when we have the backing of so many people with us,” he shared.

Rohit Kohli, President of UPCDW agreed with Karthikeyan's viewpoint. He said, “We are trying to solve every problem of dealers through our federation since the past year and a half. Till date we have not faced any problems from distributors and manufacturers, probably because we have the cumulative strength of the entire state's channel with us.”

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