Kartarpur draft readied, land acquisition to start

The second major inter-agency coordination meeting on the Kartarpur corridor took place on Tuesday at the Ministry of Home Affairs, and India is set to send a draft of the plan to Pakistan, which would enable the opening of the Kartarpur Sahib corridor. Once done, it would facilitate Sikh pilgrims an easy passage to the historic Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan.

The meeting was chaired by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba, and was attended by Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh, Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria, and DG BSF RK Misra.

“Within a month, India will send the draft of the agreement to be signed with Pakistan for the Kartarpur corridor. We hope the modalities will be completed soon,” Avtar Singh told reporters after the hour-long meeting.

India has already communicated to Pakistan the coordinates of Zero Point for the opening of the Kartarpur corridor, a home ministry official said. Tuesday’s meeting also discussed land acquisition.

Kartarpur is located in Shakargarh in Narowal district of Pakistan’s Punjab. Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism, had spent more than 18 years of his life there.

At the meeting, it was informed that preliminary notification for land acquisition for the highway has been issued and notification to acquire land for ICP will be issued on Wednesday. Punjab government had assured that the land will be made available by mid-March, the official said.

On November 26 last year, Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu laid the foundation stone of the Dera Baba Nanak-Kartarpur Sahib Corridor (up to the International Border) at an event at Mann village of Gurdaspur district of Punjab. On November 28, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone for the 4-km corridor.

With inputs from PTI