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.