NITO appoints Arun Jain as president

Tough competition prevailed this year amidst the North Bengal IT Traders Association (NITO) members, as the association conducted its elections on September 24, 2011. However, the only exception was the election of Arun Jain of Sonal Marketing, who was elected as the president, securing a win over Rakesh Sharma of Digitech by over 70 votes in the total of 104 votes casted.

In the portfolio of secretary, Shankar Dhar of Protech Computers lost to Pankaj Dutta of Laptop Bazaar by a narrow 5 votes margin. The same scenario prevailed for the post of treasurer where Subir Bhattacharya of Balaji Infotech secured a nominal win over Monojit Ghosh of Ma Tara Digital.

However, what came as a shock for the association was Dhar losing to Dutta by a narrow margin. "Dhar has been phenomenal in shaping up NITO. He was a pioneer in making NITO a success from the scratch. I am really amazed to find Dhar losing in the elections, however, people have cast their choices and we (NITO) should accept our member's choices," said Manoj Baid, member, NITO.

The Executive Committee (EC) is deemed to be elected shortly and this time, the strength of the committee will be hiked to 21 from the prevailing strength of 15 with an expected 10 new faces to show up in the committee. However, in a radical stance immediately after the elections, NITO has decided to finally join CITA. Speaking on the same, Jain said, "We will be joining CITA shortly after the EC is finalized and want to cooperate with all IT associations in the East for the betterment of trade."

Besides, Jain will be focusing on CSR programs by NITO in his 1 year tenure. Computer donations to schools and training facilities in the area are on top of NITO president's mind along with the objective to make Siliguri greener by plantation efforts. Also, NITO is poised to cooperate with other local trade bodies in Siliguri for overall betterment of the trading scenario.

"We will be cooperating with HMA and another merchant association with the objective of improving trade terms and bring in more business access for the entire trading community," Jain added. Besides the focus over CSR, NITO will also be taking up the route to increase membership in North Bengal with an enhanced focus on Sikkim.