Surrey, 8th Jul 2014 – In a joint letter by management of various Gurdwaras in different states of Canada, a request has been raised to SGPC for allowing publication of the Guru Granth Sahib by setting up a printing press in orth America.
The letter states that with the growth of Sikh Community in western countries, the request for Guru Granth Sahib ji’s saroops have increased too and it is not possible to abide by complete Guru Maryada while transporting the saroops from India. The Canadian Sikhs have stated that full efforts will be done to maintain dignity of printing at the proposed Press in North America.
At times, Sikhs residing abroad had to wait for a long period to get their copy of the Guru Sahib saroop due to limited publication as well as transportation hassles.
As of now, The SGPC is transporting the saroops to Sikhs residing abroad by air. In certain instances, affluent Sikh NRIs had even sent chartered aircraft from other countries to get saroops of Guru Granth Sahib ji. On each such flight, the holy scripture is kept separately on each seat of the aircraft after following the religious ‘maryada’ (decorum).
SGPC-appointed sewadars (volunteers) accompany the scriptures on such flights.
In 2010, SGPC had also planned to set up a printing facility in North Carolina in the US on a 2.5 acres land but the project never took off.
There is no facility for printing copies of the holy book or ‘birs’ and these are exported to gurdwaras in the US, the UK and Europe.
Even previously, this request has been raised by Sikh organisations abroad to SGPC but it seems to be getting on and off with no actual results so far.