But, unlike the previous NRI conferences, two of them organised when Capt Amarinder Singh was the Chief Minister, the present government is not trying to lure the NRIs into investing in Punjab by selling the state as a dream destination for business and industry.

After NRI conferences organised during Amarinder's reign, government officials had gone to town claiming that investment of hundreds of crores of rupees had been promised by the participating NRIs. However, apart from an NRI buying the Punjab Tourism Development Corporation's Amritsar International Hotel a few years back, not even a single penny worth of investment came Punjab's way.

On their part, the major grouse of the participating NRIs was that the state only wanted their money but was not ready to do anything to make them feel welcome.

"While it is the law that anybody who is outside the country at the time of filing of the FIR can't be declared a proclaimed offender (PO) for not joining investigation, the Punjab Police have been regularly declaring NRIs POs. It is due to this reason that one of every seven PO declared by the Punjab Police is an NRI. False cases are foisted on NRIs over property issues. In such conditions, how can one even think of inviting NRIs to invest in the state?" asks Congress MLA from Kila Raipur Jassi Khangura, who is himself an NRI.

To overcome this problem, this time the Parkash Singh Badal government has decided to hold interactive sessions to provide an opportunity to the NRIs to air their grievances and make suggestions.

"Our main focus will be to understand the legal issues that agitate the NRIs. We will give the participating NRIs an opportunity to tell us what they expect us to do to make them feel welcome. This time, the government is keen that a start be made on this count," says Punjab Chief Secretary RI Singh. Sources say the government is mulling setting up a fast-track court to deal with the cases involving NRIs and also setting up NRI police stations-cum-facilitation centres in six districts of the state.

The government has already received acceptance letters from 195 NRI for the sammelan.

Prominent among those expected to participate are Baroness Usha Prashar, Chairperson, Judicial Appointments Commission, UK, Lord Daljit Singh Rana, Belgium-based Neena Gill, who is a member of the European Union Parliament, former British Columbia Premier Ujjal Dosanjh and British Columbia MP Gurbax Singh Malhi.

MLA ridicules NRI meets

Kila Raipur MLA Jassi Khangura on Wednesday ridiculed the practice of spending public money on NRI conferences like the one being organised on January 5-6 by the Punjab government without doing anything to deal with the problems confronting them.

He claimed that even the definition of NRI is not clear to anybody. Addressing mediapersons here, Khangura said NRIs have wrongly been viewed as financially-strong individuals who are excellent hosts on foreign soils, but have limited rights on their assets in Punjab.

He urged the government to take steps to solve their problems, which relate to the assets of the NRIs in Punjab, matrimonial disputes, family litigations and travel and transit-related issues.