Amritsar, December 27 – Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh had deep connections with the holy city of Amritsar, nevertheless he was born at Gah, Chakwal district of Pakistan to Gurmukh Singh and Amrit Kaur on September 26, 1932.
His half-brother Surjit Singh Kohli said that after attaining school level education at Khalsa School in Peshawar of Pakistan, migrated to India with family at the age of 14 during partition of two nations. He said that Manmohan Singh was having deep affection with his grandmother who raised her in India after migrating from Pakistan. After migration he settled in Amritsar for some time and lived in the rented small house till graduation.
Retired professor of local Hindu college Amritsar Mr. Rajinder Loomba said that Dr. Singh graduated from the Hindu College and Economics was his favorite subject. He said that his wife Gursharan Kaur was also having deep connection with Amritsar even before marriage; her parents belonged to the holy city.
Loomba said that Dr. Singh being finance minister even as Prime minister used to visit in the city especially to Golden Temple in a very low profile manner as never preferred much security till he became prime minister.
He had once attended alumni meet of Hindu College during the convocation where he was the chief guest and mixed up with the staff of Hindu college like ordinary person, shared his old memory and affection with the contribution of principal Sant Ram Grover, Prof Mast Ram Jain and Prof Jugal Kishore Trikha who taught him economics. During convocation he interacted with the college students and mixed up with them and even also clicked group photos with them and college faculty members.
Professor Loomba said that Dr. Manmohan Singh had also got funds released from MPLAD funds from the Rajya Sabha MP (Punjab) Ashwani Kumar for the college building.
Loomba said that the Right to Information Act (RTI) was passed in 2005 during Manmohan Singh’s government, to bring transparency of information between the government and the public.
Dr. Singh was the person who always took special pain for Amritsar when he had sanctioned Rs 72 crore to complete the Galliara Project in the thickly populated old walled city around the Golden Temple. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had flagged off “Punj-Aab” bus service from Amritsar to Nankana Sahib in March 2006 connecting the Indian Sikh with Pakistan based Sikh shrines.
