Philanthropist has a change of heart, to set up labs in Gurdaspur district

Five months after Dubai philanthropist Surinder Pal Singh Oberoi stopped dispatching ration kits to Gurdaspur district following the callousness of officials in distributing the same, the man has had a change of heart. He has now decided that every initiative that he undertakes will be supervised by volunteers of his charitable organisation — Sarbat Da Bhala Trust. Moral of the story: Incompetence is abhorred while competency is rewarded. He has made it clear that he will open a new state-of-the-art pathological lab in Dhariwal which will be managed in a professional manner by his own team. Volunteers have already identified a chunk of land right in the heart of the town. This will be the 17th such venture in the state. At the same time, he has requested prominent Gurdaspur realtor Manjit Singh Dala to join the dots so that a similar lab can be established in the city. Like all other labs, the technology of these two projects, too, will be based on ‘automated analyses’. The labs will have equipment which will provide results of 30 different tests based on just one blood sample with minimal human assistance. The businessman has also set his sights on giving this border district a new look replete with new opportunities. The first phase will entail establishing a private industrial training institute (ITI) where youth will be imparted finer points of various trades.

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SAD picks Kahlon for Dera Baba Nanak constituency

The Shiromani Akali Dal has thrown up a surprise by declaring old warhorse and former Assembly Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon as its candidate for the Dera Baba Nanak Assembly seat, thereby ending all speculations. The veteran of many a political battle has already sounded the election bugle by holding rallies, both small and big, in the constituency. Other ticket aspirants have now taken a back seat, although it remains in the realms of speculation whether Kahlon will be able to take his detractors along with him or not. To the politically naïve, he is the same man who disqualified Capt Amarinder Singh from the 13th Vidhan Sabha in September 2008. Capt Singh was later reinstated by the Supreme Court. SAD insiders claim that the party has commenced preparations months in advance, knowing well that Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, the incumbent MLA, is a hard nut to crack. The Rs 172-crore developmental initiatives Randhawa has brought to the area in the wake of construction of the Kartarpur corridor are bound to stand him in good stead. The passage, during the five months in which it remained operational before the Covid struck, may not have attracted many but the fact remains that the developmental works have given an aura of invincibility to the minister. Kahlon has been brought in for two reasons. One, the only leader who could challenge Randhawa was Langah, who now stands decimated with his sleaze video doing him and his party a lot of damage. The former Speaker will fill the void created by Langah’s departure. Second, before the delimitation in 2012, a majority of villages falling in Kahlon’s former seat of Fatehgarh Churian were shifted to the Dera Baba Nanak constituency. The veteran leader has a grip on these villages. Kahlon has already commenced operations by holding ‘nukkad’ (corner) meetings almost everyday. Randhawa’s real brother, Inderjit Singh, was also in contention but his hopes, too, have vanished into thin air.

Giving wings to dreams of children from poor families

Romesh Mahajan, who is the project director of the Red Cross De-addiction centre, keeps himself busy these days in imparting education to under-privileged kids. For several years, he treated drug addicts in his centre on Babbehali road. Now, he is trying to change the destiny of 36 poor kids living in slums in the Ram Nagar area. These children were forced into begging by their parents, but now Mahajan has taken them into his fold. He pays for the salaries of teachers and also for stationery and furniture. Meals are also provided free of cost. Mahajan has earned the sobriquet of being a ‘Good Samaritan’. For the uninitiated, Mahajan has served as personal assistant to at least 10 Deputy Commissioners. It is only after his retirement that he has diverted his attention towards making Gurdaspur a better place to live in.

(Contributed by Ravi Dhaliwal)