India News | SGPC to Set Up Printing Press in US to Publish 'saroops' of Guru Granth Sahib

Amritsar, Sep 5 (PTI) The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) said on Tuesday it has decided to set up a printing press unit in the United States to publish the holy "saroops" (scriptures) of the Guru Granth Sahib.

The printing press will be set up in the city of Tracy in California, where the "Dharam Prachar Kendra" (religious preaching centre) of the Sikh body will also be functioning, SGPC chief Harjinder Singh Dhami said.

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Moreover, a religious preaching centre will also be set up in the city of Yuba in the US.

The decision was taken at an executive committee meeting of the SGPC held here.

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Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Dhami said the printing press unit will be set up in Tracy to publish the "saroops" of the Guru Granth Sahib in order to provide those in accordance with a demand from the Sikh community in the US and Canada.

He said gurdwaras will also be established at these two centres and the "sangat" (community) will also get religious literature there.

Dhami said following a demand from the "sangat" in Australia, the SGPC will ship 220 "saroops" in accordance with the "maryada" (Sikh code of conduct).

He said these decisions were taken in view of a huge demand for "saroops" from the Sikh community across the globe.

The SGPC chief said the Sri Guru Ramdas library situated within the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in Amritsar will be digitised and a separate website of the library will be created where the titles and indices of important books will be published.

The purpose of this development is to familiarise researchers with the literary treasures in the library, he said.

The library was established in 1927 and has a large number of important books.

Meanwhile, Dhami condemned an incident of heated exchanges between some of the office-bearers of the ad-hoc panel of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC), which took place during a meeting held in a hall of the Panjokhra Sahib gurdwara on August 14.

The SGPC president also criticised the decision to print voter forms in Hindi by the Haryana government for gurdwara elections.

Despite being the second language in Haryana, Punjabi is not being given due respect, he alleged, adding that the printing of the forms in Hindi for the HSGMC polls is an example of this discrimination.

The Haryana government has started the process of registering Sikh voters from September 1 for the gurdwara committee polls.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)