"During my visits to North America, including Canada, and Europe, I have had an opportunity to interact with Punjabi NRIs. Compared to the Indian diaspora from other states that nurses little or no interest in frequenting the land of their own origin or the land of their parents and grandparents, the Punjabis miss no opportunity to visit their motherland. Their enthusiasm to do something for the people of their state and their country is indomitable,"says Raj Babbar, who at one stage requested the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, to review the Black List of the Punjabi NRIs who had been prohibited from visiting the country.

Rural Punjab is witnessing a "social change" wherein village after village is becoming a "VIP" village. With contributions from their NRI brethren, the villagers have taken upon themselves the onerous task of "Village-life Improvement Programme (VIP)", for the improvement of their lifestyle. They are now creating hygienic, pollution-free villages on a voluntary basis. These new-look villages will not only have solar streetlights but also covered drains, paved streets, well-maintained parks, centres for computer training, sewage treatment plants and fish ponds.

Kharaudi, Nangal and Dhadda villages, near Mahilpur, bear testimony to this new experiment carried out by NRIs.

Raghbir Singh Bassi, a US-based Professor, and Gurdev Singh Gill, the first Indian doctor to be registered and permitted to do private practice in allopathy in Vancouver in Canada in the early 50s, are the pioneers of the Village-life Improvement Programme.

Interestingly, it is not only the rich and affluent NRIs who have been involved in thisimprovement programme, but also middle class and lower-middle class NRIs, who have been contributing their bit to make a success of the project.

If Jessie Singh, one of the richest Punjabis in the USA, has been planning some major projects for his native village, near Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur district, others NRIs too have been doing something or the other to improve life in their own villages.

Tara Singh Hyer, the slain Editor of the Vancouver-based Indo-Canadian Times, had undertaken a Rs 25-lakh project for transforming his native village, Paddi Jagir near Goraya, into a mini modern township with a high school, health centre, community centre and a veterinary hospital. Some of these projects have already been completed.

The role of Sabu Singh, an NRI from Canada, in the spread of technical education cannot be undermined. Way back in 1979, he initiated the move to bring ITIs to rural areas by getting the Manuke ITI on ground. His relentless efforts saw the setting up of an ITI for women at Jagraon.

Last year, a 17-year-old boy, Samvir Singh Sidhu, a grade 12 student in The Hill School in Pottstown, Philadelphia, founded the Hill School Entrepreneurs'' Club to set up a distant learning centre in a school at Patiala, the hometown of his parents. The club collected $68,000 to provide 30 computer terminals with CPUs and a server to Dashmesh Public School in Patiala.

His father, J.S. Sidhu, is the president and the Chief Executive Officer of Sovereign Bankcorp, the 25th largest bank in the USA.

The Sidhus want that children in Punjab should have access to the best of education, especially in information technology, free of cost. They volunteered to raise donations from other NRIs based in the USAand Canada to open similar centres in other schools in Punjab.

At Bondli, near Samrala, the Jagir Singh Charitable Trust is setting up a state-of-the-art school for children from rural areas. The trust is being supported by NRIs of North America and Australia. Its main contributors are Devinder Singh Benepal, and his wife, Kulwinder Kaur, who live in Sydney and make frequent trips to Chandigarh. The school, being named after a British Sikh scholar , will have the latest audio-visual aids and computers, besides the requisite infrastructure for sports training.

In addition to investing in education, Punjabi NRIs have made immense contribution in improving the healthcare facilities in the state. A number of diagnostic centres armed with latest facilities like MRI, full-body CTscan, computerised and well-equipped laboratories for conducting blood and urine tests, and cardio-vascular and neurocare are all available not only in major towns but also in rural and remote areas of Punjab.

One of the milestones in healthcare is the coming up of the Guru Nanak Missionary Hospital at Dahan Kaleran on the Chandigarh-Jalandhar road. The hospital is mainly funded by NRIs through the Nishkam Sewa Society, a UK-based religious organisation. This modern hospital in rural Punjab is doing yeoman service to the suffering humanity.

Only a few weeks ago, a full-fledged hospital, raised by an NRI, came up at Ludhiana. It promises to provide access to the latest diagnostic and curative technologies to patients.

When the Indian Government as part of its much publicised open skies policy allowed private air taxi operators to run air services, Punjabi NRIs came forward and started the Citylink Airlines. This private airlines was run jointly by Gurcharan Singh Bamrah of England and Surjit Singh Babra of Toronto in Canada. They even offered to construct an international airport at Jalandhar on either turnkey or build-and-operate basis. Their venture, however, failed to survive the red tapism and bureaucratic controls and they wrapped up their operations within a year and went back. The airport project never went beyond the preliminary round of discussions.

Most of the NRIs who come to invest in the industries sector here go back disappointed, unable to digest the numerous controls, checks and even the corruption.

Investments of Punjabi NRIs in the industries sector date back to the early 80s when Kewal Dhillon came from Liberia and started investing in Punjab. He initially invested in hotels, chemicals, fertilisers and agro-tech and later diversified into soft drinks and other areas.

Punjab Meats, set up by A.S. Bindra at Dera Bassi, was another major project based on NRI investment.

Of late, the focus has shifted from the traditional industries to information technology and service industry. With the coming up of a software technology park at SASNagar, some of the NRIs, especially those in the ITsector, have been again attracted to their parent state. Quark Media House will come up at a cost of Rs 20 crore at SAS Nagar.

At present, there are 11 units that are being promoted by the NRIs with assistance from the Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation (PSIDC). These units, producing chemicals, telephone cables, tractors, cotton and acrylic yarn, involve an investment of Rs 55 crore.

The PSIDC has also signed Memorandums of Understanding with 15 NRIs for setting up industrial units in the state with an estimated investment of Rs 390 crore. The products produced by these units will include automobile tyres, fibreglass and plywood doors. Another NRI-promoted company — Rama Petrochemical — has set up its unit with an investment of Rs 400 crore for denim and gelatine manufacture.

Two of the units promoted by the Punjab Agro Industries Corporation with NRIinvestment deal in egg powder and mushroom cultivation.

In addition, 19 NRIs have got the Foreign Direct Investment approval from the Government of India for setting up their units in Punjab with an equity contribution of Rs 44.65 crore. Of these, six units dealing in blended yarn, shoes, mushroom, meat products, cotton yarn and auto parts have commenced production. Nine other units, under the process of being set up, will handle embroidered cloth, software and plastic parts.

A major chunk of the NRI investment has also been pumped into the entertainment industry. Punjabi NRI singers have not only taken Punjabi pop to every nook and corner of the world but given the music industry a big fillip. The artistes who have preferred to invest in India include Malkit Singh of Tutak Tutak fame, Harbhajan Mann, Bally Sagoo, Gursewak Mann, Jeijee Bains, Manmohan Warris, Safri brothers, Vikrant and several others.

In the world of small screen, Ruby Bhatia, a Canadian, has done well as an anchor person.

The music industry owes a great deal of its success to Punjabi NRIs. Not only that, the indomitable Punjabi spirit has been making NRIs finance films, besides producing some on their own.