Kartarpur

India and Pakistan have to also to work out the modalities of documentation needed by pilgrims and the security protocol to visit the shrine. People familiar with the matter say that in all likelihood, the Kartarpur Corridor will be something like the Wagah-Artari border where a daily ceremony is held to mark the lowering of the flags and is attended by thousands on both sides of the border.

“The Wagah-Attari border is also manned by us. We have been doing this task on a large scale along the Attari-Wagah border crossing in Punjab for ages. This (Kartarpur corridor) is not a difficult thing to handle,” Border Security Force director general Rajnikath Mishra said. On average 100-150 people cross this border every day, entering or exiting India.

The Indian part of the Kartarpur corridor is being built in two parts with one stretch from Gurdaspur to Dera Nanak Baba and the second stretch from Dera Nanak Baba to the international India-Pakistan border, an official aware of the matter said on condition of anonymity.

“The part from Gurdaspur to Dera Nanak Baba is a 48 km twolane paved shoulder road which has already been tendered and awarded and on which work has begun. The other is a four-lane 4.5 km stretch from Dera Nanak Baba to the international border which was not part of our national highway. We have to develop it more like a tourist corridor. We are planning to build sculptures with details of Guru Nanak’s life along this. We have to make it till the international border beyond which the Pakistani side will take over. We will make it just like the way the Wagah border at Attari is built; the same structure with the gates, etc. The security and immigration will be taken care of by the home ministry,” added this person, a senior official at the ministry of road transport and highways. At the foundation laying ceremony of the Indian end of the corridor on November 26, union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari announced that the corridor would be completed in four months.