Allahabad dealers bearing the brunt of free laptops scheme

The biggest challenge for the newly elected body of Allahabad Computer Dealers Welfare Association (ACDWA) currently is to cope up with the free distribution of laptops and tablets in the region. The announcement of distributing free laptops to the 10th and 12th students has drastically hit the sales of the local dealers, by up to 40%. Therefore, the challenge for the new team is to create a momentum among the partners by building strong relationship with the vendors and distributors.

Speaking to The DQ Week, Rajan Singh, the newly elected president, ACDWA, who was previously managing the post of VP for last 4 years said, "We have to overcome several challenges, which our association has been confronting for last 4 months, essentially, due to fall in sales from the end-customers side. The news of free laptops and tablets distribution has completely frozen the sales from students, who are the main buyers for the IT products. Most of the students are waiting to get free laptops, and therefore we are concerned for our dealers margins and dropping sales."

Recently, the association held an installation ceremony for the new team members, where it highlighted its key issues to the state level Uttar Pradesh Computer Dealers Association (UPCDA). With the intervention of UPCDA, the association has sent a written letter to the government, in which it described how the free distribution campaign will kill their local dealers business.

Singh further added, "Under the free laptop distribution campaign, government has planned to distribute 25 lakh units per year and the overall term is for the next 5 years. Although it is a novel scheme and it will push the overall IT penetration. But, having said that, this may lead to further price under-cutting. Therefore we want the government to create a mechanism where the end-customers doesn't resale the product in the open market. Otherwise this will spoil our entire channel market."

Apart from this, the association is taking steps to overcome the current scenario by inviting vendors, like Microsoft to conducting education seminar on how to boost sale in the new segments. Moreover, workshops are being conducted by professionals on how to maintain and increase margins.

Apart from Singh as president, this newly formed association has got Sandeep Agarwal, as VP, Ashish Arora as secretary, Narendra Agarwal as treasurer and two joint secretaries Amit Rastogi and Satyam Singh on board; along with five executive members. Overall, the association has got 145 members.