Ahmedabad's elite club back from Lanka

Here is a community that's different. It may not be so strong on any of the social networking sites, but the 150-member strong association of Agrawal professionals, and has a considerable fan following.

Founded in 1992 by a few Agrawal scientists of ISRO, it organised a foreign tour recently.

Fifteen families with 31 members of Agrawal Professionals' Cultural Association, known as APCA, went to Sri Lanka in the last week of November 2011. Because it was a huge group, with discount the cost of the trip per person stood around Rs40,000 (from and to A'bad airport). Retired director general of police, IPS, PK Bansal is APCA president who led the tour of 31 members of the community.

The Agrawals, followers of Maharaja Agrasen who had an empire in Agroha near Hisar in Haryana, are Hindi speaking Vaishnavs who worship Ram, Krishna and Shiva.

"An estimated 25,000 Agrawal families stay in Ahmedabad. But APCA has only a select few," he said.

APCA members are in a different league of Agrawals as they are not businessmen or traders. To become an member, a person has to be either an IAS, IPS or senior government officer including corporation, railways and others. Also, it is open to engineers, doctors, MBAs, CAs, CS, practising lawyers, banks' branch managers and other professionals.

"We are choosy and don't want anyone to become a member of APCA. Yes, an IAS or IPS officer or a scientist he or she can easily become a member of APCA," said Bansal, who has hold the post for the past 15 years and more.

The association is non-registered but is highly professional. Like every year, APCA calls for AGM in one of the Sundays of April.

The foreign tour was suggested and planned by the committee members of APCA at the last AGM.

Every year, APCA also felicitates children who have scored distinction in school.