A PLETHORA of investment proposals for Punjab has come from the Indian diaspora who attended the NRI Sammelan in Chandigarh. According to HS Bains, media advisor to the chief minister, education and healthcare dominated the agenda and most NRIs came out with lucrative proposals in these two fields. Balbir Singh Multani from Germany has proposed to set up a state-of-the-art hotel management institute to provide world class education in the field of hotel management and catering and a media institute in Mohali to run crash courses in journalism and mass communication. Norway-based Satinder Singh has proposed to set up solar power projects in the state for power generation. Mr Singh said he could provide technical know-how in collaboration with the Punjab Energy Development Agency. UK-based TP Singh has proposed to set up a film and TV institute in the state as Punjab had a tremendous untapped potential to exploit the talent of budding artists. DS Khera from Canada has submitted a proposal for setting up a vocational education centre at Alohran village in Nabha sub-division. He also offered to set up a driving training school in the state to train young drivers as Canada could offer tremendous potential in the field of heavy driving. “Canada still needs more than 5,000 drivers,” he added. Former premier of British Columbia Ujjal Dosanjh has urged chief minister Parkash Badal to immediately update laws, rules and regulations, especially those relating to property, revenue, rent and tenancy as most of these acts had become redundant. His wife, Raminder Dosanjh, offered to give special advice on revamping the school curriculum to make it more result oriented and need-based and to explore a tie up with the British Columbia’s ministry of education. NRI teachers Mohini Basra from Canada and her sister Kulwant Padda from the USA have offered to stay back in India to train school teachers, especially for teaching English. They have also suggested sending students from Punjab to Canada under “family exchange programme” to apprise them with the culture of Punjabi families settled there and also send students of Punjabi NRI families settled across the globe to Punjab to acquaint them with the culture of Punjabi families. In addition to this, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Minister of Canada Harinder Singh Takhar evinced keen interest in setting up manufacturing units in small industry sector in collaboration with the Canadian government as Punjab had an excellent network of hosiery, automobile parts, sport goods, hand tools and machine tools industry