Tent city set up on 150 acres in second hub of festivities

Week-long functions comprising religious events, seminars, literature festival, kavi darbars to be organised besides displaying Sikh heritage and culture

DERA BABA NANAK: The historic town of Dera Baba Nanak will be the second hub of the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak after Sultanpur Lodhi as the state government has planned week-long religious and other functions in the tent city set up over 150 acres of land here.

Sultanpur Lodhi, where the founder of Sikh faith spent 14 years of his life, will be the main centre of celebrations with the arrangements made by the state government, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and other Sikh organisations. But devotees in large numbers will also be part of the celebrations at Dera Baba Nanak, where the guru came to meet his family in 1515 after the completion of his first ‘udasi’ (journey), being the last point on the Indian side to the upcoming corridor leading to Kartarpur in Pakistan.

The corridor will be thrown open on November 9, with the festivities at the town starting a day before. The celebrations, named as ‘Dera Baba Nanak Utsav’, will be held between November 8 and November 12. Religious functions, seminars, discussions, literary activities such as literature festival and kavi darbars will be held besides displaying Sikh traditional music, arts, heritage and culture on the life and philosophy of Guru Nanak, said Punjab jails and cooperation minister and local MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.

On the pattern of Sultanpur Lodhi, a large pandal has been set up over 40 acres in the tent city here along the national highway leading to the corridor. The area surrounding the town has been

divided into eight sectors, where staff of departments of health, water supply, sanitation, local government, police, and fire control will be deployed, said SDM Gursimran Singh Dhillon.

“No private vehicles, except that of locals, will be allowed to enter the town for the convenience of devotees. Parking arrangements have been made on all the routes from where government buses will ferry them to different places, including the passenger terminal built for the corridor and historic gurdwaras,” the SDM said.

WORK ON CORRIDOR STILL PENDING

Even as the departments concerned had set October as the deadline to finish work on the first phase of the Kartarpur corridor on the Indian side, much of the project is still pending.