Punjab association to discuss IT health in Chandigarh

The members of state level based Punjab Association of Computer Traders (PACT) recently held its monthly meeting in Sangrur. Fourteen presidents of regional association of PACT has decided to organize a mega meet in Chandigarh in the last week of August, 2013.

The main agenda of this meeting would be to discuss the deteriorating health of the IT trade business in the state of Punjab. This meet is expected to be attended by all the major national distributors, IT companies representative and volume partners of Punjab and Chandigarh.
Meanwhile, Chandigarh IT association, who host of this upcoming meet, is working on the invitations and agenda under the leadership of Sanjeev Walia, president of Chandigarh association.

Speaking to The DQWeek,Gurpreet Singh Jagdev, media coordinator, PACT, "The final date of this meet would be announced by  Chandigarh association, we are seriously taking up all the major issues faced by the national distributors and IT vendors, we are looking for a concrete solutions which are plaguing the market."

The association has been working for a while on multiple issues which are like Jammu 0% import, unjustified extended credit to tier-3 by volume partners, serious MOP issues due to which not only the sales of the IT traders are badly hit, most players are loosing confidence in the trade.

The Punjab market has been in doldrums due to the introduction of 0% VAT on IT products in J&K state (now extended by 1 year in the state budget of J&K). Ever since 0% VAT has been implemented, it has insulated the cross territory price war and disparity of price between the two states, which has adversely impacted the sales of IT dealers of Punjab by 20-30%.

Jagdev also informed, " Puneet Dhir, the president of Jalandhar association has prepared a memorandum and the same would be submitted to the ADC of all the main cities of Punjab for the correction of VAT in the state at the earliest."

Another major reform the association is taking to introduce 'Know Your Company' (KYC) guidelines. The form has been finalized and shortly Prem Saini of Hoshiarpur Computer Dealers Association (HCDA) and Gupta of Global Systems will start sending out the form to the IT vendors. This step will protect the association members from fly-by-night operators or defaulted vendors, distributors and dealers.

Hence, all the 13 associations of Punjab have formed a joint action plan to prepare and distribute a comprehensive form (KYC) to all the existing and new vendors and distributors. The KYC form will provide detailed information about the company's management, escalation matrix in the case of post service. The form will also have columns of warranty terms of the products and many other vital information.