General Gurnam Singh Public School, Sangrur
General Gurnam Singh Public School is a co-educational day school situated on the outskirts of Sangrur town, surrounded by vast green fields. The sylvan setting is strikingly beautiful and ideal for an institution of this type. The medium of instruction is English. The school is being run on Public School lines. It is managed by Sardar Bahadur General Gurnam Singh Educational Trust . D.C., Sangrur and S. Narendra Singh Mann are Chairman and secretary respectively. It was indeed an uphill task for S.B. General Gurnam Singh Educational Trust to realise the dream of the Late S.B. General Gurnam Singh C.I.E. who had desired in his will that his palatial house & sprawling fields (about 90 bighas) should be used for educational, technological and cultural purposes without any discrimination of caste, creed or colour.
To cater to the needs of the budding sportsmen , school has developed excellent infrastructure for sports , including a standard football field, a cricket field , two basketball courts, a lawn tennis , a table tennis hall , A.C. shooting range and horse riding field . The school has 25/13 meters indoor swimming pool and it is first indoor swimming pool in North India. The school has a strong Aquatic Team that has brought laurels to the school in a very short time.
The history of the School is connected with the illustrious personality of Late Sardar Bahadur General Gurnam Singh, C.I.E., Prime Minister of the erstwhile Patiala State and Father-in-law of H.H. Maharaja Bhupinder Singh On June 6, 1944 he and his wife Mata Niranjan Kaur settled on Trust his palatial house and 92 bighas of land to be used by the citizens of Jind State irrespective of colour, caste and creed for educational purposes. Due to the merger of States in Indian Union and because of some other reasons, the building and the land was being utilised by the Govt. for various purposes. First it was used as Refugee Camp after partition in 1947 and later as Protective home.
However, late S. Gurbaksh Singh Sibia, Ex-Minister with other prominent citizens persuaded then Deputy Commissioner Sh. Tejinder Khanna to establish and start the School as desired by late S.B. Sir General Gurnam Singh. A Trust was reconstituted on 06-06-67 by Shri Tejinder Khanna, IAS, the then Deputy Commissioner, Sangrur by taking 17 prominent personalities as Trustees, but himself remained an ordinary Trustee and persuaded Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh G.O.C. -in-c, Western Command to be the Founder Chairman of the trust and late S. Gurbaksh Singh Sibia, Ex-Minister Punjab to be the founder secretary of the Trust.
However, it was an uphill task for the Chairman to get up the possession of the property from the Govt. Lt. Gen. Harbaksh Singh and late S. Gurbaksh Singh Sibia, Ex-Minister, Punjab with other important and influential personalities Succeeded in getting the possession of the property from the Govt.
His Highness Maharaja Yadvindra Singh of Patiala performed the opening ceremony of the school on April 23, 1968. It was named as Sangrur Preparatory School, Sangrur. The School then had six class rooms, three staff quarters and the administrative block. Mrs. Kamla Puri was the founder Headmistress. The school was upgraded and renamed Gen. Gurnam Singh Public School, Sangrur in 1970, when S. Harpal Singh took over as its principal.
S. Harpal Singh took over the reins after retiring from Y.P.S. Patiala in 1970 at the juncture when it was on a very slippery ground. He used to oft remind the students 'Battles are lost and won in matter of seconds'. He was most perturbed when some people tried to delay school functions or fixtures planned by him. According to him no individual is bigger than the institution. He himself practiced what he preached and was always on the dot at the appointed place himself.
Devotion to duty was his first priority and he did not let his personal life interfere with the smooth working of the school. He was a great disciplinarian-and did not compromise on principles. Having spent all his life in a public school he was well acquainted with public school culture and was not cowed down by any bib wig. He punished the defaulters alike no matter what position their parents occupied. He strode across the scenes like a colossus for twelve years and brooked no interference of any sort. Like Napoleon the word 'Impossible in his dictionary. He had a small painted board, in his office on which was written 'It can be done'.
