NullPointerException at "new RemoteWebDriver(srvc.getUrl(), options)"

I have Three Classes as below:

And When I run the test as TestNG from 'Tests.java' I get java.lang.NullPointerException exception:

NOTE:

-It picks the browser name 'chrome' successfully from the .properties file.

-If I discard the 'Tests.java' class and move the @Test method to 'LaunchBrowserTemp.java' class and add remaining corresponding tags (i.e. BeforeClass, BeforeMethod, AfterClass, AfterMethod) to corresponding methods in 'LaunchBrowserTemp.java' it works fine. It fails only when I keep the testng annotations to the 'Tests.java' class.

src\main\java\utilities\LaunchBrowserTemp.java

    public class LaunchBrowserTemp {
    	
    	  private static ChromeDriverService srvc;
    	  private static WebDriver driver;
    	  private static String browser = getProperties("selenium.browser");
    	  private static final String baseBrowserPath = "src\\main\\resources\\drivers\\";
    	  private static ChromeOptions options;
    
    	  public static void initBrowser() throws Exception {
    		  switch (browser.toLowerCase()){
              case "chrome":
            	  options = new ChromeOptions();
                  options.addArguments("--start-maximized");
                  options.addArguments("--disable-extensions");
                  options.setAcceptInsecureCerts(true);
                  srvc = new ChromeDriverService.Builder()
              	        .usingDriverExecutable(new File(baseBrowserPath + "chromedriver.exe"))
              	        .usingAnyFreePort()
              	        .build();
              	  srvc.start();
                  break;
              default:
            	  throw new Exception("Browser Not handled in code!");
    		  }
    	    
    	  }
    
    	  public static void stopDriverService() {
    	    srvc.stop();
    	  }
    
    	  public void startDriver() {
    	    driver = new RemoteWebDriver(srvc.getUrl(), options);
    	  }
    
    	  public void endDriver() {
    	    driver.quit();
    	  }
    	  
    	  public static WebDriver driver() {
    		  return driver;
    	  }
    
    }

src\main\java\utilities\LoadProperties.java

    public class LoadProperties {
    
        public static String getProperties(String propName) {
            Properties prop = new Properties();
            try {
                FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream("src/main/resources/config.properties");
                prop.load(fis);
            } catch (Exception e){}
            return prop.getProperty(propName);
    
        }
    
    }

src\test\java\Tests.java

    public class Tests {
    	
    	LaunchBrowserTemp obj = new LaunchBrowserTemp();
    	
    	@BeforeClass
    	public void init() throws Exception{
    		LaunchBrowserTemp.initBrowser();
    	}
    	
    	@BeforeTest
    	public void start(){
    		obj.startDriver();
    	}
    	    
        @Test
        public void openUrl(){
        	driver().get("https://www.google.com");
        }
    
        @AfterTest
        public void teardown(){
        	obj.endDriver();
        }
        
        @AfterClass
    	public void terminate() {
    		LaunchBrowserTemp.stopDriverService();
    	}
        
    }

Error Screenshot