UK businessman Lord Daljit Rana to setup a University at Punjab

LORD RANA CALLS ON CHIEF SECRETARY PUNJAB
Chandigarh July 20, 2009

Lord Diljit Rana, House of Lords (upper house of Parliament UK) and Vice President of Global Organization of People of Indian origin today met the Chief Secretary Punjab Mr. S.C. Agarwal and offered to setup a University at Sanghol in district Fatehgarh Sahib supported by Rana Charitable Trust UK. The Chief Secretary welcomed the proposal and asked Mr. Rana to put up the papers and he assured full cooperation of the Punjab Government in this regard.

While interacting with Lord Rana, the Chief Secretary said that the Punjab Government would launch a luxury train to woo foreign tourists at a cost of Rs. 30 crore. Ministry of Tourism, GoI, Indian Railways and the Punjab Government are jointly funding this project. The state government had already released its entire state share amounting to Rs. 13 crore.
Earlier Mr. Rana met Mr. Hardev Singh Mattewal Advocate

Gerneral in his office and appreciated the efforts of Punjab Government regarding welfare of NRIs . Mr. Rana invited Mr. Mattewal for the forth coming international conference of NRIs to be held in UK under the banner of Global organization of people of Indian origin (GOPIO) for deliberations o NRIs issues.

Lord Rana has also submitted a few proposals like tourism development, education and environmental issues and healthy living, health screening camps, educating the population against alcoholism and drug addiction, higher technical vocational training programmes for women and upliftment of girls providing them quality education. The emphasis of these proposals would be to transform Punjab's economy in the next 15 to 20 years with the joint efforts between the government and the NRIs, said Lord Rana.

The visiting NRI also said that more than two million Punjabis are currently settled abroad doing remarkably well in their respective professions. He urged the Punjab Government to launch a campaign to identify them and to enlist their knowledge and support for initiatives taken by the Government aiming at strengthening economy, tourism and education in Punjab.

Prominent among others who were present in the meeting included Principal Secretary Technical Education & Industrial Training Mrs. Tejinder Kaur, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Punjab Mr. D.S. Guru, Principal Secretary Higher Education K.B.S Sidhu, Commissioner NRI Affairs Mr. Vikas Partap, Director Rural Development and Punchayats Gurdev Singh Sidhu.