Kartarpur Corridor is a unique link between two countries, India and Pakistan. It’s a novel example not available anywhere in the world where natives from one country will enter its neighbour country territory, without a visa and without a passport. Pakistan has generously allowed this facility to their neighbour country but his natives would not use such a facility for visiting India. The Pakistan PM Imran Khan has shown magnanimity and generosity ignoring similar facilities on a reciprocal basis, which is the international norm among the countries of the world.
As a matter of fact, the Sikh political leadership, Akalis, and Congress could not handle the service charges issue properly. The Sikh religious leadership failed in their responsibility to persuade Pakistan to waive off this levy of service charges or reduce it to half or even more. The political leaders used derogatory language against these service Charges.
India and India sign the agreement on Kartarpur Corridor on Thursday, paving the way for its inauguration next month ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of the founder of Sikhism Guru Nanak Dev. The fact that the two countries have signed the pact is a positive development and it must be welcomed by everyone. The signing ceremony took place at Kartarpur Zero Line.
Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal and the Indian External Affairs Ministry had on Monday announced that they are ready to sign the agreement on Oct 23, 2019, which was later scheduled for Thursday 24.10.19. The agreement was finalised after three rounds of negotiations which included various international and national issues.
The last deadlock was the $20 service fee that Pakistan will charge from every pilgrim for a single trip. However, India has reluctantly agreed to it and signed the Kartarpur Corridor agreement.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will inaugurate the Corridor on November 9, after which visa-free link between Darbar Sahib shrine in Kartarpur and Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Punjab will open for the pilgrims. The exact timings of the opening and closing of the shrine would be announced after the signing of the agreement.
On any day up to 5,000 Sikh pilgrims from India would use the corridor, while on special occasions greater numbers would be accepted depending on capacity.
This agreement will allow Indian pilgrims to cross over to Pakistan to pay obeisance at Darbar Sahib Gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib to coincide with the 550th birth anniversary of first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak Dev ji. The Corridor will link Dera Baba Nanak town, a border town in Gurdaspur in India to the Gurdwara in Kartarpur Sahib in (Pakistan).
Despite having lots of acrimonious exchanges over the Kashmir issue between the top leadership of two countries, the project of building the corridor remained unaffected. The construction work to complete the project in time is continuing without any hindrance. This shows that hidden feelings among two countries is to live in peace in the interest of commonalities in culture and thick relationship of the people on both sides of the zero line.
India had earlier not agreed to the service fee of $20 to be charged from each pilgrim which in today’s exchange rate is Rs.1450.00, the reason being many pilgrims may not be able to afford to pay these charges and will thus lose the opportunity to visit the holiest of the holy shrine.
Pakistan maintained that the charges are justified to cover the various facilities to be provided to the pilgrims who will visit in large numbers. It includes maintenance of infrastructure, maintaining 170 visa counters and as many number of officers for fast clearance of permits to 5,000 pilgrims, their helping staff, computers and printers, generators for continuous supply of electricity to run and manage the infrastructure, providing air-conditioned buses from zero line to the shrine and back to the pilgrims to cover a distance of 4 kilometers, provision of langar (community lunch), hundreds of cook would be pressed into service to prepare and distribute langar, tea and snacks, washing of utensils, scores of sweepers to provide clean toilets, gardeners for maintaining landscapes and flower pots etc, thousands of security personals for round the clock security to protect the pilgrims and Kartarpur shrine, provision of doctors, medicines and ambulances.
Keeping in view the above, India reluctantly signed the agreement accepting the $20 levy clause.
As a matter of fact, the Sikh political leadership, Akalis, and Congress could not handle the service charges issue properly. The Sikh religious leadership failed in their responsibility to persuade Pakistan to waive off this levy of service charges or reduce it to half or even more. The political leaders used derogatory language against these service Charges. Both the Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh called it “Jazia” and while former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal called “Sin”, however there is no explanation to the above charge by Parkash Singh Badal.
Had the Sikh religious leaders and the Punjab politicians observed some caution and behaved diplomatically, they would have succeeded in getting the service fee reduced to some extent.