402 pilgrims visit on Day 8
Issues still beset the pilgrimage, especially online registration
The Kartarpur Corridor continues to witness low footfall of pilgrims even eight days after its opening.
Though the corridor that provides visa-free access to Indian devotees to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, Kartarpur, the last resting place of Guru Nanak in Pakistan, saw slight improvement in footfall on Saturday at 402, the number is still very low keeping in view the arrangements made for 5,000 pilgrims daily.
On Friday, only 160 Indian devotees went to Kartarpur while 240 used the corridor on Thursday.
Barring the opening day (November 9) and 550th Parkash Purb of Guru Nanak (November 12), the footfall on other days remained below 300.
‘WILL TAKE JATHA OF 500 MEMBERS’
Meanwhile, Navjot Kaur Sidhu, wife of Congress MLA Navjot Singh Sidhu, on Saturday said they would take a jatha of 500 pilgrims to the Kartarpur shrine.
In a chat with mediapersons here, Sidhu said, “We will start online registration for the members of the jatha after 15 days.”
Officials of intelligence agencies said the footfall is likely to increase in coming days as the people are gradually becoming aware of the procedure of the online registration.
ISSUES WHILE APLLYING ONLINE
Meanwhile, devotees using newly opened corridor are facing various issues while filling online registration form on the portal of Union ministry of home affairs.
Amritsar-based Navin Kumar told HT that he successfully filled registration form of his elderly uncle who lives in Delhi, on Friday choosing November 27 as date of travel.
“However, when I began to fill form of my aunt who is to accompany my uncle, the portal started showing the slot for November 27 unavailable. The slot was available on next day. There was no option of cancelling the booking of my uncle on November 27, so that I could postpone his booking to next day,” he said.
“Then I tried to book the slot
of November 28 for both. First I filled the registration form of my aunt. When I tried to book same slot for my uncle, the portal showed a message that he is already registered for November 27 and there must be a gap of 15 days between two journey dates,” Kumar said.
“I tried to contact nodal officer for online registration for Amritsar pilgrims, but he did not pick my call. Then I contacted the officer of Gurdaspur district, but he expressed helplessness and assured to raise the issue with the ministry. We also sent a mail at the ID given on the website in this regard, but got no reply yet,” he added.