Another raid at Ritchie Street

This time initiated by a networking company

It seems the IT market and raids have become synonymous with each other,
especially with Ritchie Street. This IT hub of south India has faced a series of
raids, in the last few months, mainly initia-ted by MNC vendors, along with
enforcement agencies and the local police.

This week, a new case has been registered against a major networking reseller
(located at Majestic Plaza), allegedly for selling fake products of AMP, a brand
of Tyco Electronics. While a section of the resellers feel continuous raids will
affect the market sentiments and business, some feel it is nece-ssary to clean
up the market and weed out the black sheeps at least now, to do healthy
business.

According to market repo-rts, the networking reseller shop was raided on
February 10 in search of counterfeit produ-cts of AMP. During the raid, the
authorities are said to have seized close to Rs 5,000 worth of materials (I/O
products–passive networking compo-nents) bearing the brand name AMP. The
police have also arrested the Director of the company and taken him into
custody. Now, the Director is moving bail and is expected to be released
shortly.

Meanwhile, the raids have been carried out in a couple of other IT shops too,
but there was no seizure of material or arrest of any person from there.

"We are sure that the targe-ted company does not deal with counterfeit
products. We have know them for several years and we wonder how it happened.
They are part of a leading business group and there is no necessity for them to
make money through shortc-uts. They are from a respectable family,"
supported a leading sub-distributor in the market.

When contacted, KK Shetty, Country Manager, Tyco Elec-tronics, said, "We
have been getting news that fake produ-cts are in circulation in large numbers
across the country. In fact, we have been working on this for the last three
months and now, we are carrying out raids with enough proof. This is part of the
nationwide program and soon more such raids will happen in other metros
too."

Countered one of the affe-cted parties whose shop was also raided, "We
agree that fake products are in circula-tion in the market. But, some genuine
players like us are also affected in the process. IT business is where resellers
buy and sell products among them and not all resellers or all products are
bought from the distributors directly. The chance of fake products being mixed
and circulated is wide open and it is very tough to identify original versus
duplicate. Considering this, vendors should plug it at source so that flow of
spurious products stopped at the origin itself."

"We have cautioned the market of circulation of fake products and we
have also told resellers that the company is very serious about this issue. It
is very unfortunate that some good players are also affected in the process and
the company is taking all steps to plug it at source and protect the interest of
resellers and consumers in business," added a close associate of the
company.

S Gopikrishna

Chennai