AGARTALA: More to Achieve

Agartala, the capital of the north eastern state of Tripura is very close to Bangladesh. It is rich in both flora and fauna. This town is famous for rice, tea, jute, and oilseed and is the commercial center of the region. The major attraction of the town is the Ujjayanta Palace, which was established in the Indo-Saracenic architecture in 1901 by Maharaja Radhakishore Manikya. It is a two-storey mansion, with 28 hectares of parkland, and it now occupies the office of the State Legislative Assembly.

The Agartala IT market is growing healthy at 25-30% y-o-y and is expected to grow on similar lines this year as well. "The market is fluctuating. In some months it gives us good profits and in some, it is very dull. We don't know the reason behind this phenomenon. We have been witnessing this trend for quite a while now and somehow we have started living with this peculiar trend," said Pankaj Datta of Datta Computers. Meanwhile, Siddharth Dey, CEO, Info Solutions Systems said, "For the past 3-4 months, we have not got any order from the government due to the financial crisis prevailing in the state."

There are around 60 resellers and distributors operating in the city who serve various business verticals. The sales of laptops is more than that of desktops as some 300 laptops are sold per month while desktops remain static at around 180-190 units. "Digital cameras are selling in very good numbers especially Nikon, Sony and Fuji," said Saikat Saha, CEO, Sigma Systems. As far as growth is concerned, the Agartala IT market is just behind Guwahati in the whole of North East.

Agartala houses one national distributor-Redington, to cater to the needs of customers in the city. Redington has recruited 1 area manager for the region, and dealers say that he does his best for developing business. Besides, HP has 1 regional distributor.

The Information Technology Association of Tripura (ITAT), works towards forming unity among members and solves the vendor-dealer related problems. It is supposed to be a platform where every stakeholder of the IT industry in Agartala can raise his/her voice about any issues. But dealers have varying opinions about the association. Saha said that ITAT has helped him whenever he has come across any problem with vendors but on the contrary, Dey said, "ITAT is of no help to us. It functions only on paper. There are even no meetings organized to look into our issues."

INTERVIEW: Saikat Saha, CEO, Sigma Systems

What are the top selling products and brands?

Customers mainly demand HP, Compaq, Toshiba laptops and desktops from Wipro, Compaq and Acer. Besides, Nikon and Sony digital cameras also give us substantial revenue.

What is the annual revenue of the Agartala IT market?

It should be around Rs 20-25 crore.

Is there any association at the local level? Are you satisfied with its functioning?

Yes, we do have Information Technology Association of Tripura. It has always been of help, whenever I have approached them with my concerns.