The dawn of the New Year was not such great news for Guwahati since the city
was rocked by three bomb blasts. The blasts which took place in Birubari,
Bhutnath and Bhangarh markets during the afternoon, resulted in five casualties
leaving 67 people injured. The blasts which are being seen by most as a handy
work of ULFA, have managed to wipe out the New Year cheer from the IT market.
The market had just started recovering after the serial blasts in November
last year and the fresh blasts have again struck panic into the hearts of the
people in the north-eastern region.
Talking about the repeated blasts, SL Jain, MD, Jain Infosys, Guwahati
commented, “The security scenario is grave here. As of now it is too early to
speak about the effect these blasts will have on the IT channel space, yet we
are expecting a drastic slowdown in sales if the security scenario remains the
same.”
Expecting thriving business in the new year ahead, the IT channel space had
geared up for celebrations flooding the market with offers with a steady supply
of IT commodities. Now, the situation has again become grim with most of the
channel players in Guwahati taking a pessimistic stance for the year ahead.
The IT space is expecting to reap the benefits of the government investments
and the emerging niche gamer segment in another six months. The Assamese
government is all set to open two major technical institutes by August-September
2009 drawing students from across the north-east region and the IT channel is
looking forward to an increase in sales because of the new opportunities.
However, at this point of time, the IT space is hit because of the security
concerns and an increase in taxation. Recently, as the excise duty on hardware
imports came down, the state government pulled up the taxation limit in the
inverter and UPS segment from four percent to 12.4 percent leaving the IT space
skeptical about a drop in sales in this segment.