Jaipur gets third IT channel association

Jaipur: The lack of coordination among Rajasthan Computers' Dealers Association (RCTA) and Raj IT Forum has been making news in Jaipur for a long time now. The latest from the pink city is that it now has a new association. Raiser Plaza Computer Traders Association (RPTCTA) is the latest entrant to the club of associations.

The association has been formed by the dealers at Raiser Plaza, the IT hub of Jaipur and the executive members are Shyam Jain from Jai Sri Durga Computer, Vivek Kalra, from Kalra Sales Corporation, Ajit Surana from Ganpati Computer, Dinesh Chajed from Sun Computer, Pradeep Bhimrajka from Ridhi Sidhi Computer, Anil Chopra from Sunrise Computer, Jaideep Mathur from Jaideep Mathur Dot Com and Sandeep Daga from Khushal IT Solution.

"Currently, there is no committee or post in the association and there are only executive members. The association will conduct an election within few months to decide different designation of the members. As of now we have 81 members listed in the association and we will have around 150 members soon," informed Shyam Jain who is the force behind the formation of the new association.

It is interesting to note that Jain had in fact contested the RCTA election this time for the post of the secretary.

Giving the reason for forming a new association, when the market has already got one association and an IT Forum, he said, "It is correct that Jaipur has already got two working associations. However, RCTA has been ignoring the Raiser members who contribute 40 percent of IT market share of Jaipur. For the benefit of partners operating out of Raiser plaza and to do IT promotions, members of the plaza wanted their own associations and hence we formed RPTCTA."

The association will conduct a meeting in which they will finalize and decide the activities to be done and the targets to be accomplished. It will make efforts to establish good relations between the distributors, vendors and the channel partners.

One of the active member of Raj IT Forum shared that though it is not encouraging to have a new association but for long term it may have a positive impact on the activities of the RCTA as it may push them to become more active.

Dealers in Jaipur opined that every channel partner has the right to express their views and in case they are not satisfied with the actions of current association, they can go ahead and form a new association.

Considering the inactive attitude of the members of RCTA, the formation of a new association might actually jolt them to get into more visible actions for their long term survival. One of the ex-executive council members of RCTA stated that this is just a way to gain attention in the market and no one is working to provide solutions to the issues that he channel faces.

"An association cannot run unless and until the members are active enough to take up the real challenges of the community. These actions are only for the personal gains," said one of the RCTA members on the condition of anonymity.

Reacting on the formation of a new association, Deepak Sarda, Secretary, RCTA said, "This new association is not in competition with RCTA and we do not have any problem with this. They are members of RCTA. It is not correct that RCTA has ignored the dealers in Raiser Plaza. Our association is for major issues and this Raiser association is for individual issues."

What is interesting to note is that while the city now has three associations, the Jaipur dealers are plagued with VAT issues and none of the associations has been active enough to highlight it anywhere.