Pratap Singh Kairon (1901-1965) was the Chief Minister of Punjab province (then comprising of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) and widely acknowledged as the architect of post-independence Punjab Province (or Punjab Haryana and Himachal as of today). Moreover he was an Indian independence movement leader. He was jailed twice by British Empire. Once for five years for organizing protests against British rule. His Political influence and views are still considered to dominate Punjab Politics.

Pratap Singh Kairon was born on October 4, 1901, in a Sikh family of Kairon in Amritsar district, Province of Punjab, during British regime. Pratap studied at Khalsa College, Amritsar and then went to U.S., where he supported himself with work on farms and factories. He did his masters in Political Science from University of Michigan. He also did masters in Economics from University of California at Berkeley before going to Michigan. He was influenced by farming methods practised in U.S.A. and returned home to replicate the same in India.

The INDO SWISS TRAINING CENTRE was initially planed to be set up in Pune in the campus of National Chemical Laboratory(NCL). Due to his influence in politics and his devotion to the people of Punjab, he pressurized and insisted Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (The then Prime Minister of India) to bring the ISTC project to Chandigarh in the campus of CSIR-CSIO.

We indeed are deeply beholden for this act of magnanimity on the part of Late Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon.