Karnal association focuses on IT awareness, defaulters

The barely seven-month-old Karnal Computer Vendors
Association (KCVA) is already showing the promise of being an active Association.
This 40-member association of the close-knit IT community in Karnal, a small
district in Haryana, was formed after a few players got together and decided that
a common platform is needed for the community to share information and tackle
issues that impact the market adversely.

"In tune with one of the major goals of the association
to tackle payment defaulters, in January this year, the association managed to
bring to book a reseller who had cheated a local vendor of goods worth Rs 10
lakh by placing orders against post-dated cheques. As soon as it was discovered
that the cheques were not valid, the associations wung into action. The culprit,
however, managed to evade the police," informed Harbhajan Singh, the first
President of KCVA.

The association is structured to have an executive member
body headed by a President. In its first meeting held in December2004, 10
members were unanimously elected to represent the local IT community. Apart from
Harbhajan Singh of Infotech Computers and Communications, who is President of KCVA,
the other nine executive members include Anil Verma of Abacus International, Kamal
Bhasin of Pranay Computers, Charanjit Singh of Ahuja Sales, Atul Sachdeva of
Computech Mart, Alok Arora of Horizon Systems, Vikas Mann of Computer Network,
Naveen Bajaj ofBajaj Agencies, Parminder Singh of SIMT and Rajiv Kaushal of Ace
Computers.

According to Harbhajan, there are a lot of plans for this
young association but creating IT awareness takes priority. It is high on the
KCVA agenda. "We are encouraging customers to approach the association if
they feel they have been cheated or have got a bad deal," he said.

RUTH SAMSON