Australian High Commissioner Harinder Sidhu on Sunday pledged her support and cooperation for developing smart cities in Punjab. Sidhu offered to help Punjab in developing ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar as smart cities as Australia has a proven track and expertise in urban development due to its architectural and engineering marvels known for their sheer acumen and techniques, read Punjab Government’s official Press statement.
Australian envoy’s offer came during her meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who had sought cooperation from the visiting High Commissioner in the fields of education, skill training, agriculture and urban development. Calling on Badal at his official residence, Sidhu apprised him that Australian Government was already in the advanced stage of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Punjab Institute of Sports (PIS) to provide training to the sportspersons as well as the coaches to upgrade their skills in the sports.
She said her Government was also striving hard to ink another MoU with the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala, on the same lines. Sidhu also expressed gratitude to the Punjab Government for having inked a MoU with Australian Government in the field of sports. The Australian ambassador also offered to extend fulsome support and cooperation to Punjab in the field of agriculture, education and skill development. Sidhu said she was proud to be a Punjabi and it was her endeavour to set up joint ventures in the field of agriculture, food processing and education with mutual cooperation.
She apprised Badal about indomitable and enterprising spirit of Punjabis, who have enormously contributed in the development and growth of Australian economy.
Earlier, Badal urged Sidhu to help the State to provide high yield quality wheat seed to further enhance its quantum of production, besides initiating farmer exchange programme between Punjab and Australia so as to enable progressive farmers to learn about new techniques and modern farm practices of agriculture to maximize their yield.
He also impressed upon the visiting Australian envoy to tie-up with their educational institutions and universities in the field of higher and technical education. Also evincing keen interest to have collaboration with Australian Government to start new courses in skill development to upgrade skills of Punjab’s unemployed youth, he offered her to set up healthcare and medical education and research institutions in the upcoming Medi-city in Mullanpur.
Concluding, Sidhu assured Badal that she would soon get back to him for transforming these proposals put forth by him into projects on the ground after having detailed deliberation with the Australian Government.