FAIITA is going to elect their President on July 2, 2022 in Chandigarh. Now, there are two potential candidates who are contesting for the responsible position of President. One is Mr. Devesh Rastogi (current Sr. VP of FAIITA) and the other is Mr. Puneet Singhal (current Govt Committee Chairman, FAIITA and the President of CMDA—Computer Dealers Media Association). We, at NCN, interacted with several leading members of the associations and took their opinions and expectations.
Mr. Devesh Rastogi comments, “Now it is time to engage with the brands closely on business agreements, promotions, ND arrangements etc and for that purpose, if elected as President, I intend to enhance the scope of the OLS committee as a Brand Coordination Committee with one of its main tasks will be to create an inclusive business atmosphere wherein T3 & T4 partners come in focus. Also, the India IT-Mall which we created provides equal opportunity to all dealers and the work of the Brand Coordination Committee will complement it making the ‘Dream of Reaching Last Mile a Success.’ I will give my best to FAIITA, its member associations, executive board and the channel community in resolving the issues and to take industry to the next level.”
Mr. Rastogi has a wide experience of 42 years in running businesses of different types including IT. He has been associated, through his business entities Devlok Distributors, Digizone, Trend Marketing etc, with the vendors and channel–retail or distribution. A few years back, he launched his own brand ACXXEL that manufactures and provides desktops, AIO, Mini PCs, Print Toners, CCTVs, SSDs and others. During his tenure as the Sr. VP of FAIITA, he had the opportunity to work on different challenges faced by the IT Channel Community, work with the team collectively and achieve many successes. He aims to work for the betterment of the channel community and provide business opportunities to their members.
On the other hand, CMDA Delhi & PCAIT is supporting the candidature of Mr. Puneet Singhal who is the current Govt Committee Chairman, FAIITA and President of CMDA-Delhi. Mr. Puneet Singhal is also the CAIT Core Committee Member. He is the MD of Pioneer Enterprises in New Delhi. He has strong ties with the government representatives. Mr. Puneet Singhal has been the President of CMDA for 22 years and overall he has 35+ years of business experience.
Mr. Puneet Singhal comments, “If I am elected and given the opportunity to serve as the President of FAIITA, with great humility, I will accept the task of taking FAIITA to greater heights with the blessings from all. It is well-known that I have always advocated consensus and unanimity with open discussions. My aim would be to improve transparency, remove misunderstandings, improving clarity, resolving the partner’s issues with the vendors and improving communications between the partners and the FAIITA management board. The idea of creating FAIITA was to create a family like organization where people would freely put forward their grievances. Very sadly some of us have taken posts to our heads and tried to ignore the opinions and feeling of some members. My intention is not to offend anybody, but we have to work towards improving the conditions. I promise to do my best, if given an opportunity, to create a better ecosystem to ensure all members, small and big, will get an audience to express themselves freely and without inhibitions.”
Mr. Puneet Singhal promises to achieve timely settlement of disputes with OEMs, distributors or with fellow partners. Among his goals of co-ordination with state associations are no interference in the work of State Associations and no direct nomination of any State Association member in FAIITA team without current State Association Members’ Approval as resolved in AGMs. Among other goals to be achieved under Mr. Puneet Singhal are ensuring 10000+ partners registration with IT Mall under chairmanship of Mr. Karthik, committee to bring all associations members under IT Mall, implementation of Omni channel and Integration with ONDC. He is committed to register all member associations to India IT Mall.
Mr. Kaushik Pandya, current President of FAIITA, comments, “Mr. Devesh Rastogi is the most appropriate Presidential candidate for the coming FAIITA term. He has the vision & clarity to drive FAIITA to a different level in terms of reaching the last mile, betterment for fraternity, and all other fronts upon which FAIITA has been working past two & half years. He has also represented FAIITA very well to the Government as well as Brands, and in today’s scenario, I am sure that under his leadership FAIITA will act as a bridge to help to form appropriate policies for the Government as well as work under a very cohesive environment to always protect the interests of the channel community. FAIITA’s five-point agenda – Flourish, Knowledge, Networking, Strength & Protection will be driving the community to the envisaged vision.”
Mr. Navin Gupta, General Secretary of FAIITA, shares, “Mr. Devesh Rastogi has done a tremendous job as a member and also as Sr. VP. He worked very well with vendors in resolving the pricing issues related to ecommerce sites vis-à-vis offline channels and also in dealing with the problems with GeM. He has very good contacts in the government and he is a very hard worker. In my opinion he is the right candidate to be the President.”
Mr. Manoj Khanna, General Secretary, CMDA, comments, “Mr. Puneet Singhal promises to unify the FAIITA members if elected President of the organization. He promises to tie up with more than 250 OEMs for the business growth of the partners who are members of FAIITA, maintain complete transparency in account keeping and in all communications, bring international brands to India, recognition with Ministry of Information and Technology, GEM, MSME, Ministry of Finance etc. and engagement with CAIT for better representation. He also promises to resolve all issues of partners, time-bound dispute settlement, ensure sufficient stocks and ensure effective implementation of price parity. I think he is an ideal candidate to be the President of FAIITA for the forthcoming term.”
Mr. Alok Gupta, President, PCAIT, states, “Main issues are often with Brick and Mortar partners who face problems with vendors and sometimes with the government. Puneet Sighal ji has a lot of connections in the government, so we believe he is the right candidate to become the President. Next, most companies have their Head Offices in Delhi-NCR. So being in Delhi and also having close connections with the government, Puneetji will be able to deal with the government and also with the vendors more efficiently and effectively. In our opinion, he will be the best candidate to be President of FAIITA. Going by the feelings of the industry, we think Puneetji will win in the elections. We are in favor of the Secret ballot so that people can vote true to their heart, without worrying others watching to whom they are voting as in the case of an open ballet voting system.”
Mr. Viren Bavishi, President, TAIT, feels, “As of now, we don’t want to take sides. But we want whoever wins should do their best to FAIITA, plug the loopholes, and improve the functioning of the system so that members and the channel community will benefit. There are lot of area where FAIITA needs to improve. Also We want voting to be secret ballot so that people can vote without hesitation.”
Mr. Sanjiv Walia, National Convener of FAIITA and Election Commissioner 2022, shares, “My job is to remain neutral, coordinate and conduct elections in a systematic manner and in time and see to that everything goes well without conflicts and hindrances. As election commissioner, I will not accept any nuisance from anyone and all those involved in voting should behave according to the decorum. We are sure everything will go well and we will soon have the new President who will take the IT industry, channel community and FAIITA to the next level.”
To Sum Up
FAIITA being the leading umbrella IT association, we believe this election is very important. We wish whoever wins will give his best, improve the functioning of FAIITA and service channel community and the industry. Let us wait and watch till July 2 to know the winner.
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