It’s high time that DCTA (Delhi Computer Traders Association) is disbanded
altogether. Since its formation in the nineties, it has never served its
purpose. In fact, one cannot recall even a single activity which, it has
undertaken.
And now, the recent activities of the association, reinforces the belief that
there is no use in it being alive. Instead, CMDA (Computer Media Dealers
Association), the other channel association of the capital, should widen its
scope and take over the space of DCTA also. That it can do very easily by just
adding the word ‘and’ between Computer and Media–much like the association
in Pune.
When DCTA was formed there were a lot of expectations amongst the channel
community. This was more so because Shyam Modi became its President and remained
so till mid 2001. To be fair to him, he at least tried his best to be an ‘active’
head and went out of his way to help out the channel community as and when
anybody faced any problem with the government agencies.
But that is certainly not the primary job of the President. Rather than
taking care of the individual problems of different resellers, he has to address
issues which affect the channel community as a whole. This was what Modi failed
to do.
He was replaced by Anil Sachdeva who literally promised the moon, when he
took over. Since he is one of the leading and one of the oldest channel player
of the capital, everybody looked upto him with high hopes. His two year tenure
passed by without any concrete action.
Then in August 2003, Mahinder Aggarwal took over as the President and
promptly appointed PK Sharma as the Chairman, which is a ceremonial post and
created for the first time in DCTA. However, the honeymoon didn’t last long
and Sharma along with JP Bansal and Sunil Chopra–Joint Secretary and Treasurer
respectively–resigned in late December. According to market sources, this
happened because of the totally arbitrary style of functioning of Aggarwal who
is said to be more interested in furthering his political ambitions rather than
doing something for the betterment of the channel community.
Even after so many years of being in existence, DCTA has less than 200
members, when Nehru Place itself has close to 1,000 resellers and the capital’s
total channel community is 3,000 strong. Contrast this with some other cities. A
small city like Surat has more than 200 resellers as members of the local
channel association SITA. Jalandhar’s JCDA has 75 members.
All this makes DCTA something as a joke amongst the capital’s channel
community. Either it should get its act together by involving some seniors and
prominent channel partners like Keshav Madhav, Harsh Vij, RK Malhotra etc or it
should disband.