By IANS
Chandigarh : Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Punjab government on behalf of the London-based Loomba Trust for setting up a Rs 10 mn ‘Adarsh’ (model) school in Dhilwan village of Punjab’s Kapurthala district.
The MOU was signed on behalf of the Loomba Trust by Cherie with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at a dinner meeting here Friday evening. She is the chairperson of the trust set up by London-based non-resident Indian (NRI) businessman Raj Loomba.
The school will be set up in Dhilwan village, nearly 200 km from here. The village is the native place of Raj Loomba who had last week promised to grant Rs 5 mn (Rs 50 lakh) for the school. Badal had promised to pool in another Rs 5 mn as matching grant from the Punjab government.
Adarsh schools are a concept introduced by the Badal government to provide better educational facilities for children in select villages in Punjab.
Cherie, who is on her maiden visit to Punjab, will visit Dhilwan village Saturday. She will also visit the Harmandar Sahib (Golden Temple), the holiest of Sikh shrines in Amritsar. She is visiting Punjab and India for four days at the initiative of Raj Loomba.
The Loomba Trust has been spearheading the cause of poor widows and children in India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya. The trust supports over 3,600 children in India.
“I wanted to do something for my village Dhilwan. I made the offer of giving a grant of Rs 5 mn for the school there at the recent Punjabi NRI Sammelan held here by the Punjab government and the chief minister responded positively by announcing a matching grant,” Loomba told IANS.
The school will be renamed as Shri Jagiri Lal Loomba memorial school after Loomba’s father.
Loomba said that he set up the Loomba Trust a decade ago after getting inspiration from his mother, who was widowed at a young age but brought up her children l single-handedly to become successful in life.