Pratap Bhogilal Journey Through Life

Author(s): Rauf Ahmed
Publisher: Bhupendra Singh Anand

Page 86

80 PRATAP BHOGILAL - JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE
hall, medical Scanning Centre and the new Engineering College of over 300,000 sq. ft. Building with five streams - Civil, Mechanical, Electronics & Communication, I.T. and Chemical along with staff residential and new hostel facilities coming up. It is expected to get a deemed University status. The desert region of earlier Kutch has been transformed into a beautiful, vibrant and prosperous region perhaps the richest in Gujarat.
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It is amazing how money flows to Veerayatan without any specific appeal.
The inauguration of the Engineering College is planned in the last days of February 2012 and for this purpose a meeting was held in May 2011. and I was appointed the Core Committee Chairman against my wishes and it was also decided that for the function we should not have any politician as Chief Guest but we should have businessmen/industrialist as Chief Guest. I asked at the meeting what is the total amount - mostly after 2001 it was in hundreds of crores and the market cap could be around 4000 crores according to one of our Chartered Accountant members. So I suggested the name of Mr. Ratan Tata and all unanimously approved and I suggested we should invite as many of such eminent business persons - men and women as Special Invitees. My intention is that Veerayatan should be taken on a global level because I do not think there is any NGO in the world comparable to Veerayatan and that it should not be only a Jain organisation. This suggestion was also approved.
To my approach to Mr. Ratan Tata I received a positive response, but not as a Chief Guest but he said he would come and agreed to also speak on the occasion. His suggestion was that I should invite Mr. Narayana N.R. Murthy of Infosys to be the Chief Guest.
The inauguration planned for February 2012 has been postponed to late December 2012 or early January 2013 because of unseasonal heavy rains and extremely cold weather which delayed the completion of work.
My meeting with Acharyashri took place quite a few years ago after World Jain Confederation had been established and I went to meet
There are no devils in Hell, they are all here. - William Shakespeare