CMDA to design guidelines for clean business

In a bid to prevent cases of possible fraud, Computer and Media Dealers Association
(CMDA), of Pune has decided to draw up a set of guidelines to promote clean and profitable business. 

The decision is part of the roadmap chalked out by the association for the year following the take-over of the new committee.

Suresh Joshi, MD, Cache Technologies Pvt Ltd, is the new President of CMDA for the year 2004-05. The
new committee, however, did not take over the responsibilities of the association until last week owing to the annual CMDA Expo.

A letter issued by the new President to the members of CMDA speaks of the new initiatives planned by the association for the year 2004-05. Some of
these initiatives include a bi-monthly newsletter, a directory containing vital information on members including photographs, identity cards for
working out collaborative deals and promoting SI forums and reseller forums. 

"Unlike the existing directory, the proposed members directory would contain information on the member, the kind of
products he deals in, his blood group etc. This will help to prevent fraud and can also be given to industries
thus boosting our credibility," Joshi explained. 

The decision to moot guidelines to promote clean and profitable business is also a fall-out of the recent cases of fraud where members of CMDA have been
duped to the tune of lakhs of rupees. In one particular case, there have been 138 cases of cheque bouncing and members have been duped of money
ranging between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 30 lakh. The guidelines would provide for alerts against any possible suspicious fraudster and make members come out
to prevent others from being duped.

Since Pune has no SI forum, CMDA has therefore decided to take the initiative to moot this and also hold meetings with third tier resellers who
are not part of the association. According to Joshi, the numbers here were pretty large and therefore important. Pune has at least 500 such third tier
resellers.

In addition, the regular activities such as exhibition, sports, lectures, seminars on changes in statutory requirements, product training will
continue to be held at regular intervals. 

The CMDA has currently over 200 members. Brijen Shah is the Secretary of the committee while Satish Taneja of Stech
Computers is Joint Secretary of CMDA. Kausar Dabihya of Taurus Infotek, Suresh Mohite of Aditi Enterprises, Sachin
Salunke of Computer Infotech, and Murugesh Natarajan of Duotronics are members of the executive committee. The others to join the committee for the
first time also include Shital Nahar of Nahar Integrated Systems, Sunil Gugale of United Computers, Rajesh Chaudhary of Asterix Computers and
Ghanshyam.

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