Kartarpur Corridor: NHAI finishes survey to demarcate 4.2km passage up to IB

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has completed its survey in the Dera Baba Nanak area of Punjab’s Gurdaspur district to demarcate the passage up to the international border for the corridor to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur, the last resting place of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak.

After Pakistan’s federal minister for religious affairs and inter-faith harmony, Noor-Ul-Haq Qadri, said they have completed 35 per cent work for construction of the corridor, the Indian authorities also claimed to have speeded up the work on the Indian side.

Small red flags have been put up in the fields near the Indo-Pak border, for the upcoming passage that will connect the ‘darshan asthan’ (the place where devotees watch the shrine on Pakistan side with the help of a binocular) with the corridor that the neighbouring country will construct.

“We are checking the revenue records of the farmland for the purpose of acquisition. We are seeing, how much land and whose land needed to be acquired. After that we will finalize the blueprint of the land acquisition”, said Dera Baba Nanak sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Ashok Sharma.

Land in three villages — Jaurian, Chandu Nangal and Pakhoke — is part of the acquisition plan, he said. The authorities, however, have not yet clarified the same with the farmers concerned.

Also, a team of senior Border Security Force (BSF) officials on Wednesday visited the passage site for constructing a base for which they demanded 70 acre land. But no progress has been made to construct offices of departments concerned such as the immigration bureau and the customs.

The digital foundation stone of the corridor project was laid by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu, in the presence of Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh at Mann village near Dera Baba Nanak town on November 26.

First Published: Jan 18, 2019 15:52 IST