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TAIT seeks Mumbai police help to curb payment defaults

The Mumbai association called couple of police officials to address channel partners and educate them about the legal issue

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Prasanth
New Update

In the last couple of months, the Mumbai IT market witnessed an increase in the number of payment defaulters, which has affected channel partners especially monetarily. There have been instances wherein new as well as well-known established partners have vanished from the market leaving partners in distraught. Trader's Association of Information Technology (TAIT) took up this matter and approached the Mumbai police to help them in order to curb this menace.

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TAIT under this unique channel engagement initiative had called couple of officials from Dr Bhadkamkar Marg Police Station to address channel partners and educate them about the legal issue. "This was one of its kind initiative by any association. We as a family have decided to fight this problem, and the first step is to educate the channel partners regarding the legal options they can avail when they face such situations," said Champakraj Gurjar, director, TAIT.

Addressing the audience, Ajit Surve, senior inspector, Mumbai Police started his session talking about terrorism in Mumbai and how channel partners can support police to track terrorist activities. "It is the responsibility of the trading community to inform us of any bulk purchase of integrated circuits (IC) as it is widely used in manufacturing of explosives like IEDs," said Surve.

The police official also informed that how the police is utilizing CCTV cameras. "The government is installing about 5,000 CCTV cameras across Mumbai which includes night-vision cameras at critical junctions. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is also planning to deploy CCTV cameras. Such measures have helped us in the past to track down criminals while constantly maintaining vigilance," added Surve. He recommended partners to install CCTV cameras at Lamington Road and in their offices to keep a vigil on events happening around them and keep an eye on their employees. These efforts will help the community to reduce theft incidents in offices and godowns. Discussing cheating incidents, the police official informed channel partners about various measures to be taken both precautionary and after the incident. Surve said, "Every partner should have detailed documentation about their clients like bonafide certificates of sales and income tax, VAT number, TIN number, PAN card details and permanent address."

He further recommended partners to keep detailed information about their employees also and cross-check the identity of servants and workers before employing them. Surve also educated the partner community about various legal options available against payment defaulters. He talked about how partners can utilize section 138 and after the preliminary investigation the police will decide whether the case is criminal or civil. He also elaborated in detail about the procedure followed by the police after a complaint is registered and how immediate complaints or FIRs along with information of the client can help them to get their money back.

TAIT also asked Sandip S Batavia, advocate, Mumbai High Court to further inform partners about various legal options available. Batavia said that every first notice to be sent out to offenders/defaulters will be free of cost and this offer will be available only for TAIT members. After this session, TAIT committee members and partners decided to set up a system to keep a check on these activities. In near future, the association is planning to work out some sort of information database and is also planning to devise some sort of credit rating system.

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