The existing road link between the Mann village and binocular on zero line via Dera Baba Nanak town is around seven km and this distance will reduced with new direct road that will be constructed for the purpose of corridor.A NEW road will be constructed to link the Dera Baba Nanak-Kalanaur road with the International border as part of Kartarpur Sahib corridor into Indian territory. India and Pakistan had held ground-breaking ceremonies for Kartarpur corridor in the last week of November. This corridor is to provide visa-free access to Sikh devotees in India to Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib around 4 kilometres inside Pakistan.
The construction work on corridor has started in Pakistan but the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is yet to start the work on the construction of corridor in its area.
Talking to The Sunday Express, Punjab Cabinet Minister and Dera Baba Nanak MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said, “Now it has been decided in principle that a new road will originate from the Dera Baba Nanak-Kalanaur road from a point near Mann village. This road will directly touch with the only existing link road between Dera Baba Nanak and zero line. We would need to acquire farming land for this purpose.”
The existing 1.5 km link road between Dera Baba Nanak and zero line ends at the point exactly where a binocular has been installed for Sikh devotees to see Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan.
The existing road link between the Mann village and binocular on zero line via Dera Baba Nanak town is around seven km and this distance will reduced with new direct road that will be constructed for the purpose of corridor. Dera Baba Nanak will be bypassed after construction of new road.
The minister said, “The new road from the Dera Baba Nanak-Kalanaur road will touch the existing link road to border just around 100 meters after the BSF check post situated on it. I am happy that it was Congress party government and my efforts that link road was constructed between the Dera Baba Nanak and zero line in 2004 and now portion of same road will be converted into Corridor.”
The distance of BSF post on existing link road to zero line is 700 metres.
Randhawa said, “We would need to acquire the land for the new road to link Dera Baba Nanak-Kalanaur road with link road to zero line. Length of this new road could be between 2.5 km to 3 km. The exact length of the road will come out only after NHAI will do demarcation for this purpose. Some time will be consumed in issuing notification for the acquisition of land and invite objections from the farmers whose land would be required for the purpose. I have asked NHAI to start the demarcation of the land as soon as possible. We are already late.”
He said, “I also wrote a letter to the PM to develop Batala-Dera Baba Nanak road as National Highway as it would be best available option for devotees to reach Dera Baba Nanak from Amritsar. There already exists a highway between Amritsar and Batala. Existing road between Batala and Dera Baba Nanak is not sufficient for this purpose.
Gurdaspur deputy commissioner Vipil Ujjwal said, “We are yet to receive any official communication from the NHAI regarding Kartarpur Corridor. We haven’t yet informed officially that which road will be constructed and what would be the distance. We will inform public as soon as it will be decided.”
