Punjab CM pays NRIs Sangat Darshan

CHANDIGARH:It was a "day of the Diaspora" as Punjabis from all over the world converged on Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's sector 2 residence. 



 In what turned out to be "a spontaneous outpouring of emotions, ideas, suggestions and offers, the NRIs jostled, interacted and laughed with the Chief Minister the whole day".

Disclosing this, .Harcharan Bains, Media Advisor to Chief Minister said that the NRIs came up will concrete proposals and projects for the state in various fields ranging from education to industry, from tourism to media excellence.  

Bains said that the Chief Minister had personally invited many NRI teachers, including Mrs.Mohini Basra from Canada and her sister Mrs.Kulwant Padda from USA.   Both offered to stay back in India to train school teachers, especially in the teaching of English language.   They also suggested the Chief Minister to send the students from Punjab to Canada under 'family exchange programme' to apprise them with the culture of Punjabi families settled there and likewise the students of the Punjabi NRI families settled across the globe should also be sent to Punjab to acquaint with the culture of Punjabi families.   "It is all the more important to imbibe the Punjabi culture, rich traditions and golden heritage amongst the younger generation settled abroad because unfortunately they had been detached from their cultural heritage with the passage of time", observed Mrs Mohini Basra.  

Balbir Singh Multani from Germany offered to set up a media institute at Mohali to run crash courses in journalism and mass communication with an objective to upgrade the professional skills of media persons.  He also evinced keen interest to set up a state-of-the-art hotel management institute to provide world class education in the field of hotel management and catering.

Satinder Singh from Norway showed interest to set up projects in the state to generate power from solar energy.  He said that he had vast experience in the field and offered to provide technical know-how in collaboration with Punjab Energy Development Agency.  

TP Singh from UK offered to set up a film and TV institute in the state as Punjab had a tremendous untapped potential to exploit the talent of the budding artistes.  He said that Punjab abounded in talent of performing arts which could be further boost through the orientation of their skills.   "If Punjabi singers and artistes could enthrall the public in international fora why can't they excel here in their motherland? The only short coming was to equip them with the proper professional infrastructure and sharpen their skills", said Mr.TP Singh. 

DS Khera from Canada submitted a proposal for setting up a vocational education centre at village Alohran in Nabha sub-division. He also offered to set up a driving training school in the state to professionally train the young drivers as Canada could offer tremendous job potential in the field of heavy driving and said 'Canada still needs more than 5000 drivers as on today'.  

Ashwani Uppal, from OMAXE group offered to set up thermal plants in the state provided the government assured the coal linkage and facilitate the land acquisition.  

.Bains further said that education and health care dominated the agenda during the as most of the NRIs came out with lucrative proposals in these two fields.  The NRIs also appreciated the Chief Minister's unique initiative for making this Punjabi NRI Sammelan an annual feature and expressed solidarity with the Punjab government to make the vision Punjab 'unveiled by member Parliament & Working President SAD Mr.Sukhbir Singh Badal into reality positively by 2010 instead of 2012 as projected by him'.  Mr.Bains said that the NRIs who called on Chief Minister today assured Mr.Badal that they would also impress upon their fellow NRIs in their respective countries of adoption to invest in Punjab as it offered tremendous opportunities for development and prosperity.   The NRIs told Mr.Badal that 2-day Sammelan at Chandigarh and Jalandhar had not only reposed confidence in them but also wiped out the wrong impressions and apprehensions from their minds about the investment climate and said the after deliberations during the Sammelan they had been convinced that Punjab was the most preferred investment destination in the world and they were all for making huge investment here.  

 Prominent amongst NRIs who called on the Chief Minister during the sangat darshan included Mr. & Mrs. R.S.Dhandha, UK, Mrs. Harinder Kaur from Vancouver, Mr. Sukwinder Singh from UK, Dr. Harinder Singh Ahluwalia from Canada, Mr. Nirbhai Singha and  Mr. Sukhdev Singh Turna (USA), Mr. Bawa Singh Dhillon, (Hong Kong), Mrs. Meena Sanghera from USA, Mr. Gurjit Singh, Tharajwala, Mr. Mohinder Singh, (Canada), Mr. M.S.Hike Brar, Canada, Mr. Ranjit Singh, Mr. Harinder Singh Khera, UK, Mr. Gurdev Singh Canada, Mr. Sarbjit Singh Kailey, UK, Mr. Bhupinder Singh USA, Mr. Hartar Singh Sangha, London, Mr. Mewa Singh Lider, Greek, Mr. Harjinder Singh, Advocate (Germany), Mr. Gajjan Singh (Spain), Mr. Inderpal Singh Shergill, UK, Mr. Dharam Singh Pannu, Canada, Mr. Harbans Singh Chahal, Canada, Mr. Mohinder Singh Canada, Mr. Kuldip Singh, (UK), Ms. Karamjit Gill, UK, Ms. Rajwant Kaur, USA, Ms. Gurpal Kaur, UK, Mr. Harkewal Singh, UK  and   Mr. Navdeep Singh, (Canada).

The Chief Minister was accompanied by Advisor Dr.DS Cheema, Chief Secretary RI Singh, DGP NPS Aulakh, Financial Commissioner Revenue Romila Dubey, Principal Secretary Tourism Geetika Kalha, School Education KBS Sidhu, Secretary Housing & Urban Development Arun Goyal, Secretary Irrigation & Power Suresh Kumar, Secretary Technical Education & Employment Generation Mr.NS Kalsi, Secretary NRI affairs Mr.AS Chhatwal and Director Industries VK Janjua.