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Charting charity [ MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2005 12:50:12 AM]

NRIs No Min Bal for the next 20 yrs! For Ajinder Pal Singh Chawla, who went to the UK in the 1960s with a bachelors degree in education, it was simpler to become an entrepreneur than teach. “It was very difficult for foreigners to get a teaching job in the UK in those days and the clerical job, which I initially had in the civil service department, was not challenging enough,” he says. The garments trading and wholesale business which Chawla and his wife started with a meagre 50 pound loan from Barclay’s Bank in 1973, today has a turnover of about 10-12 million pounds annually, with 60% of the turnover coming from exports all over Europe to regions like Scandinavia, Spain and Germany. “Initially it was just trading in knitted garments which we chose to focus on. Unlike other Indians who either set up corner shops or opened eating places, we decided on clothing,” says Chawla. The company was named Nova of London with other group companies like Nova International Fashions and Nova Investments being formed later. “My sons Ajesh and Daveneet now look after the day to day operations of the business while I have become the chairman of the company. My elder son is a graduate in business studies while the younger one graduated with marketing. I like to spend more time in social and community work,” says Chawla who has formed a charity in the UK to raise funds for the fight against cancer. “My wife died of breast cancer when she was only 43 years old. And when I set up the MKC Trust, I found that in India too, in the metros, breast cancer was affecting a large number of women. The funds that my UK-based charity is raising will be used to set up a mobile cancer screening unit for early detection in Punjab,” says Chawla, who is chairman of the trust. The Roko Cancer mobile units will start operating in Punjab soon and will later be launched in other states. Chawla will be putting in Rs 1 cr to get the first phase of his charity going in India. He has supported the SGRD Rotary Cancer hospital in Amritsar to build a therapy wing for cancer patients. “Member of Parliament of Indian origin Keith Vaz and film director Gurinder Chadha are supporting me in the fund raising efforts,” Chawla says. He recently organised a reception in the House of Commons as part of the fund-raising drive which was attended by prominent British Asians and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. His sons, meanwhile, have expanded the exports business of the Nova group and are sourcing garments from China, Bangladesh, India, Korea and Pakistan. ”My son Ajesh spent some time in India but found that the quality of manufactured garments still needs a great deal of improvement,” says Chawla. The Nova group has two labels of its own -- QED and Puritan in the lower segment of the garments market which are doing well in France, Spain and Denmark. It also markets its Newlook label in over 500 stores in the UK and the rest of Europe. But Chawla himself leaves the business to his sons and is very active in social activities like the Rotary Club of London, the World Punjabi Organisation of which he is the president (Europe), and Khalsa institutes, of which he is patron.

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17/07/2006