New Jersey: Seema M. Singh has been honored with New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine retaining her as New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate. Ms. Singh’s popularity began to climb new heights when she took over as the New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate, coupled with her membership with the NJ Cabinet in early 2002. Her motto is clear – Quality Service at fair and reasonable rates in the area of public utility. As a member of the New Jersey Cabinet and a prominent official from the Asian American Community in the state government, Ms. Singh has clearly reflected a vision to effectively serve the people of her community in a broader perspective. Similarly, she created a platform representing it at all the administrative levels.

The New Jersey Ratepayer Advocate represents ratepayers of New Jersey and provides a voice in getting services such as energy, water, and telecommunications, besides formulating step for the augmentation in the future.

Ms. Singh is known for her emphasis on the important utility services like Number Portability, VOIP, Home Heating Assistance Programs and Utility Outreach. She further laid stress on facilitating smooth transition and informed decisions by all consumers, apart from initiating information outreach to Asians.

The credit of initiating the first-ever statewide Conservation for Kids program, titled “It’s Cool To Conserve. In less than Three Months” recently goes to Ms. Singh. It meant extending academic programs to about 5000 elementary school children in 30 schools in New Jersey. She further represented the rights and interests of all New Jersey ratepayers in the case of mergers and acquisitions of utilities including the proposed merger between PSE&G and Exelon which would make the merged company the largest utility in the country. Moreover, she strongly opposed the merger as it was filed, on several grounds, including making the argument that the rewards to the ratepayers from the merger as filed, do not justify the risks to the ratepayers. She also felt the importance of realizing additional federal funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to cater to the interests of low-income households.

She took the lead in the introduction of “Baisakhi” and “Diwali” celebrations at the State House in her capacity as President of the Asian Indian Chamber of Commerce. As Chamber President, Ms. Singh led an Indo-American business delegation to India, to include leading New Jersey businesses and U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone. She organized a highly successful business expo to introduce major New Jersey State agencies to the vibrant Asian business community of New Jersey. Accordingly, she started Asian-American media roundtables on the Governor’s Budget proposals and the State of the State to help them understand the issues and concerns, the possible impact on their communities, so they may spread the word to their audience. Her services extended to the area of community health care also.

Ms. Singh took the cudgels against domestic violence against women of Asian roots. For efficient tackling of the issues, she convened a roundtable at the State House with the participation of the professionals and individuals from the metropolitan area who works with and on behalf of domestic violence victims.

Her sway with the Asian American groups is so strong thanks to her active role in many of the major Asian American civic and cultural events, including the Chinese, Indian, Korean, Pakistani and Palestinian communities to plan a project which would train and identify culturally specific and knowledgeable volunteers to be available to assist women seeking help with domestic violence and to help by translation to assist prosecutors with protecting them. The Asian Safety Net, set up by Ms. Singh, conducted a series of roundtables on the incidence and nature of domestic violence in these communities.

She maintains that the importance of introducing a higher level of Asian studies was also prompted by the growing influence and contribution of Asian-Americans to the State of New Jersey and the importance of public school students receiving a well rounded education on world cultures and regions.

Last but not the least; Ms. Singh volunteered the cause of the Tsunami victims during December 2004, which won her appreciation from several community groups that formed the relief network.

Release Source: www.c2b2bnews.com

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