Has DCTA been locked up

Delhi Computer Traders Association (DCTA) has an

intimate and earnest relationship with the DQ Week Delhi. Since the time DQ Week

came into being, it has been watching the functioning of DCTA very closely and

has been giving the association its fruitful feedback. The reason being that

DCTA was first ever association in Delhi, which was committed to dealers and DQ

Week was the first ever newspaper dedicated to dealers in the city. The

friendship started from there and the bond ran much deeper. With the DQ Week,

DCTA grew but somewhere down the line DCTA lost its direction, its zeal and its

enthusiasm to work for the dealer community, the very mission on which it was

born.

Lot of problems seems to be plaguing the DCTA

functioning and in spite of repeated assurances from Shyam Modi, its President,

no concrete steps have been taken so far. The major problem has been the delay

in the much-needed elections. For the last six months, he has been talking about

holding its third elections but till date no elections are in sight. The first

time when the DQ Week spoke to DCTA, date of election was finalized for December

21, 2000. Mahinder Kumar Aggarwal, VP, DCTA revealed this. At that time, Modi

was a little confused over the election's date. He maintained that the date of

election had not been fixed.

When we approached DCTA on December 20, again there were

no signs of elections. Modi informed that DCTA had a meeting with some prominent

20-25 dealers--including Triffin Technologies, Multilink Systems, Challenger

Computers, Elcom Trading etc--and it was decided that major ad campaign would be

taken out in national dailies and various magazines to increase the popularity

of the association. In addition, membership drive would be carried out which was

supposed to last till January 15, 2001 and election was tentatively decided to

take place sometime in early February.

Today is May 2, 2001 and elections are nowhere in sight.

Though ad campaigns have been quite visible in the media but there has been no

discernible outcome. No new members have been added as yet and elections have

been postponed further. When we contacted Modi's office in April, we met with

some outrageous comments. There was no explanation from their side except for

some furious remarks.

If that was not enough, KK Gupta, Treasurer, DCTA has

been absconding with lots of money from the market. It's ironic that a

treasurer, who is supposed to take stock of money, has so many FIRs lodged in

the Nehru Place police station for deceit relating to money! Doesn't all this

put a question mark on the association itself? Yes, say almost all the dealers

(and members of DCTA) unequivocally.

"DCTA is defunct now," said Ashish Agarwal,

Director, Triffin Technology. "It is just a name. Now there is no entity,

which is visible as such. Thefts, bouncing of cheques, piracy etc have been

rampant in the Nehru Place market but association, as a whole has taken a blind

eye towards it."

Aman Palta of Universal Technologies Pvt Ltd has the

same point of view to share. "Though I am its member, I have never paid

money for its funds. Why should I keep paying money for something which is not

working."

On the flip side, some of the members were of the view

that members were also to be blamed for this situation. They felt that if

members do not take active interest in the functioning of the association, then

it would not suffice the purpose. "Whenever the meetings are called, hardly

any member turn up for the meeting," said Saurabh Nagpal, Director,

Multilink. Agreed Manoj Gupta, Director, Fortune Marketing, "If the office

bearers want to take some decision, they just can not do it because members are

not present in the meeting. Can the association work if members do not take

interest in the association?"

The amazing part about the whole scenario is that though

dealers are not happy with the way the association has functioned, they are

quite satisfied with the way Modi has helped them at his personal level. "Shyam

Modi is doing enormous amount of effort on a personal level but there is no

coordination among the office bearers," said Agarwal. Even Gupta had the

same opinion to share. He felt that Modi is doing whatever he can do in his

personal capacity and has always been very helpful.

But the bottomline is that an association cannot run on

a single man's effort. There has to be a proper coordination amongst its office

bearers as well as its members. The fact is that the association is almost

defunct now and some drastic measures need to be taken urgently to revive it.