Expos galore in Rajasthan

JAIPUR, INDIA: Before the dust kicked up by controversies surrounding Rajasthan Computer Dealers Association could settle down, the association is caught up in yet another issue. This time the problems are surrounding the upcoming IT expo.

While Deepak Sharda, Secretary, RCTA has already issued an e-mail confirming the details of the expo to members, there are some who are intent on baring the holes in the plans and highlighting where RCTA is going wrong. This internal unrest is threatening to throw the association out of gear.

The issue trails back to last year when IT Voice organized an expo in Jaipur. Unable to organize its own, RCTA decided to piggyback on IT Voice’s expo. This year however both RCTA and IT Voice have announced their intentions to hold separate expos, signaling dissent among the organizers.

RCTA’s expo is called Computer Expo 2009 and will be held from Aug 14-16. On the other hand Tarun Tonk, organizer of IT Voice, who is also a member of RCTA, prefers to term his event a trade fair—IT Voice Expo 2009, and it will be held from Sep 9-13.

Sharing details about IT Voice Expo 2009, Tonk commented that the theme this year was ‘Business with IT.’ “There are many different associations, like chemist and jewelery, that are associated with us. Our aim is to fulfill the IT needs of all those associations,” said Tonk. About 1.5 lakh visitors are expected to come for the five day event.

Meanwhile, RCTA’s expo is slated to be held from Aug 14-16 at Jawahar Kala Kendra.

Speaking about the reason behind organizing such an event, Sharda of RCTA said, “The idea is to get partners together in one place and give them the opportunity to meet vendors.” Sharda informed that vendors would be given a two hour slot for showcasing their products and there would be sessions taken by vendors to train the partners about technologies.

When questioned about why this year the two organizations were not conducting the expo together, Sharda said that the association had a new team and was excited about doing it on its own. Tonk took a more diplomatic stance by saying that while RCTA would not be an official partner, it would be an associate partner in IT Voice Expo 2009, signaling that there were no issues between the two.

But while great efforts are going in to make things look fairly smooth on the outside, the undercurrents of discontent are pretty strong. An e-mail sent out from an un-known id, of a man identified as simply Dinesh Yadav, has asked some pertinent questions to RCTA and laid bare the situation. One of the accusations leveled at the organizers of the RCTA expo was that in their mail participation by all vendors and distis operating in Rajasthan was being made mandatory.

The other point that was brought up in the mail was that while the announcement had been made about the expo, a lot of the details were still shaky. Just last week slightly different dates had been announced. A major factor was that no committee had been set up to spearhead the expo. When questioned about these aspects, Sharda commented, “As far are participation is concerned, we are expecting all brands to be a part of the expo. It is an association program so we look forward to all vendors’ participation.”

Sharda confirmed that they had yet to finalize a committee for the event, but that would happen by the end of the week.

Raj IT Forum, an online platform for local partners to communicate, which was created by Arvind Modi of Bits and Bytes, has also been showing a lot of activity on this front with members slugging out their queries.

As an industry veteran, Modi had felt the need to give back to the IT community, hence he had created Raj IT Forum as a think tank to work for the betterment of the community. “The idea was to keep RCTA on its toes and ensure that once people are elected to senior posts they don’t just sit through their terms,” exclaimed Modi, adding that both the forum as well as he would oppose the decision to make vendors and distis participation mandatory.

When questioned about the two expos taking place one after the other Modi said, “Two expos happening within a month of each other in the same market would not make sense. No company would have that much budget to sponsor two events.”

Asked which event he would be a part of Modi, who was traveling, without access to mail, said that as of now he was not too sure and would decide once he got back and had a look at the rate plans and other details of both expos. As an afterthought he mentioned that RCTA’s expo would probably be a success and IT Voice would have to withdraw their plans.

“No one will go against RCTA. I think members will unite to make the expo successful,” opined Modi optimistically.