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Journalism of Courage
MUMBAI, December 12: Kulwant Singh Kohli, the 64-year-old chairman and managing director of Preetam Group of Hotels – the main hotel, Hotel Midtown Preetam being located at Dadar central – has been selected as next sheriff of Mumbai. To be sworn in tomorrow at Raj Bhavan, Kohli will replace Usha Kiron whose term ends tomorrow.
A close friend of Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, Kohli claims he had no idea who proposed his name for the post. "I didn’t even think about it," an overjoyed Kohli told Express Newsline, "fortunately I knew everybody (in the power circuit). I must appreciate the present government for choosing me from my community as sheriff. My community was feeling ignored by the present government…we didn’t have an MLC or anybody in a public position," he added.
A hotelier by inheritance (his father started a restaurant in the area in 1942, which later transformed into the swanky four star Hotel Preetam by 1988), Kohli is into social work now and has just finished the first phase of the Guru Nanak Hospital at the Bandra-Kurla complex. "It will be a non-profit organisation and for the present will be a general hospital with operation theatres and ICUs," he explained. The chairman of the hospital, Kohli holds the project very close to his heart. He has also been in film financing, Pakeezah being his first project. "We have reduced these projects now," he said.
The new job of a sheriff, however, is still a mystery to him. He has no priorities. "I am not yet fully aware of the roles and responsibilities of the sheriff. I will have to study it and am sure that God will definitely help me in my endeavour," he said. An entrepreneur who worked his way to his position, Kohli is essentially a keen businessman, with no time for merry-making on the eve of the grand function tomorrow. "I am in the office working as I always do," he said.
