Punjab Govt to Engage Private PR Professionals

The Punjab Government would formulate a policy to provide recognition to the PR Companies and private PR  practitioners  to insure their involvement in ongoing government’s PR activities, under Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

 Mr. Jagjit Puri, Secretary, Information and Public Relations, Punjab disclosed this while presiding over a seminar on Achieving Excellence in PR through IT Intervention organized by Public Relations Society of India, (PRSI) Chandigarh Chapter.  

In his presidential address Mr. Puri advised PRSI to  compile a directory with details of PR Companies working in India and  abroad  to help the PR Department to  use their services for media management in in other states or abroad.

Talking about long emotional attachment with PR, Mr. Puri recollected his memoirs when he was a University student and started his carrier as an Assistant Public Relations Man in some Private Company. He said that today the Information technology had totally changed the face of the world, all the borders and barriers had been eliminated and flow of information became very easy through internet networking. Mr. Puri urged PR practitioners to continuously upgrade their technological skills for collective interface with the media to reach out to the grassroots level. Mr. Puri also underlined various PR challenges faced by the state government for effective flow of communication. 

Col Rajesh Dua, General Manager, IT, Punjab Infotech in his key note address touched upon 4 step PR Process of Research, Planning~ Communicating and Evaluating. He gave detailed account of current technologies and their applications for strategic information systems. He said that managing a local problem, partnership between general, IT and users management is crucial and e-governance is not about transporting processes, but transforming processes. 

 Earlier in her welcome address, Ms. Renuka B. Salwan, Chairperson of the Chandigarh Chapter said that technological changes have a significant impact on communication and PR professionals have to adopt it fully. PR is an information related discipline and information data banks help in PR planning and strategies. On the occasion, she also announced to annually organize Dilgir Memorial lecture every year on his birthday falling in August.

Mr Charanjit Singh, Managing Director, Core PR stated that for achieving professional excellence, it is imperative to be competitive, ethical and truthful. For effective and efficient  management of PR campaigns ,   PR practitioners should  learn to use the entire range of communication tools available with them whether traditional or the modern ones like webcasting, blogging, podcasting, etc.