BCDWA set for CITA membership

As the Guwahati meet of Confederation of IT Associations (CITA) concluded over the issue of defining national distributors and its policy towards unifying the Eastern associations, Bankura Computer Dealers Welfare Association (BCDWA) is all set to join CITA by the end of this March.

So far the Bankura based association has been participating in the CITA meetings as an invitee and impressed with the ‘thought of unity of Eastern associations' has moved forward to propose its members in joining CITA.

"We will shortly hold a meeting with our 24 members over actively joining CITA. I think by joining CITA, we will be able to leverage their reach and bring our issues to the forefront," said Rajesh Jajodia, president, BCDWA.

BCDWA is keen to increase its membership and create its own fund. The Bankura association is also planning to launch its own website but it is likely to occur by the end of this year.

"We will soon be launching an anti-piracy campaign for the end-users as well as the channel partners to propagate the use of using original software," added Jajodia. He added that this campaign will not be limited just to Microsoft as it was the case with most of the associations previously, but will encompass other software vendors too.

Besides, CITA is also seemingly ambitious about increasing its presence and is offering founder member status to all associations which will officially join CITA before March 31.

In this aggressive move, the confederation is offering the prospective joinees a representation power of having 4 members of an association in all its meetings.

Under the present norm for smaller associations in the upcountry, for every 20 members, CITA allows a representation of one of the association members. In addition to that, financial offerings are also in place. For membership registration in CITA, the present charges are Rs 21,000 and annual charges are calculated on the basis of the membership strength.