Education sector set to spurt IT growth in Udaipur

With the Rajasthan state government's decision to make computer education compulsory from class 9th onwards, the computer market is about to increase rapidly. As a result, the reseller community of Udaipur is quite upbeat about this move.

"This is a good initiative by the government of Rajasthan, it will increase the awareness of computers and its usability at the school level and as a result of this, from July onwards we are going to see an additional 500 to 700 PCs being sold in the education sector. This will translate into around 300 branded PCs and the rest being assembled ones," said Vinay Sharma, Proprietor of Udaipur-based reseller Pioneer Computers.

There are more than 500 schools within the Udaipur region and out of this, more than 250 are at senior secondary level.

Udaipur is the second largest IT market in Rajasthan after Jaipur. The most active segments are the corporates and
SOHO.

With the government's new initiative, the education sector will see a lot of growth in the region.

Udaipur, one of the most culturally vibrant cities of Rajasthan is having more than 150 resellers engaged in the IT business and around 115 are members of the Udaipur Computer Association (UCA). Though there is little doubt about the expansion of IT market, but with that the number of players has also seen a tremendous growth.

"In the year 1996 we used to operate at around eight to 10 percent margins and now it has come down to less than one percent. So margins have come down and simultaneously the number of players has increased. But because we have different players in different localities of the city, we are able to maintain healthy competition and no cases of fraud or cheating are reported," pointed out Pavan Kothari, President,
UCA.

If we go to Nehru Place in Delhi or Lamington Road in Mumbai, there is cut-throat competition amongst different resellers.

But unlike big cities, Udaipur reseller market is scattered within the city at different localities and this encourages healthy competition. "We at times give chance to other resellers if we get an inquiry and we are not operating in that particular place.

So this helps us maintain a bond within our reseller community," asserted Sunil M Vastawat, MD, Netcom, another prominent reseller in the city.

Zia Askari