Nilgiris gets IT association

N R Sethuraman

Chennai

November 28th, 2007

Nilgiris traders have y got together to form their own association-Nilgiris
Information Technology Association (NITA). "After trading for about 15
years in this region we felt the need for an association, which would evolve our
trade and give it new dimension. Unorganized trade was haunting our traders for
a long time and this association will help get rid of those players and would
safeguard the interest of the consumers and those in the organized trade in the
region," said T Senthil Kumar, President, NITA.

NITA would cover Coonor, Ooty, Goodalur and Kotagiri. "There are 28
players in the association doing organized trade. Even though organized players
were present, customers were constantly being lured by fake offers by
freelancers. Now the association is working on those complaints and encouraging
safe, honest trade and purchase for both traders and customers," he added.

"To know that customers here are not aware of our traders strength is
really disappointing. This association would help us to establish and project
ourselves in this area and make our customers understand that we can cater to
any vertical in emerging technologies," Kumar asserted.

Claiming the total business worth in this region to be around Rs 25 crore a
year, he said, "Being a very small area we don't have much opportunities
like industries or SMBs in this region. However business is growing every year
due to home segments, educational institutions, government sectors and
hotels."

NITA has also planned to develop the association through various means by
conducting exhibitions and has formed a set of regulations to boost trade in the
region. NITA would also conduct training programs for traders every month.
"We are confident of educating our people as we have experts in every
domain within us. So we are conducting regular meetings every month on the third
week and a prominent speaker, who is an expert in that particular domain would
be addressing an important topic."

That apart, NITA is associating itself in few self-driven projects. "We
intend to collect old and unused computers and lend those computers to the
schools. We have also undertaken a new project to train tribal people in nearby
villages. We would be supplying computers from our association for the training,
to equip them for better jobs," Kumar asserted.