Paving the way for the year-long celebrations of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, India and Pakistan signed the landmark agreement to operationalise the Kartarpur corridor deal on Thursday. The agreement signing ceremony took place at the Kartarpur Zero Point at the Pakistan-India border in Narowal.
The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Punjab with the gurdwara at Kartarpur, just about four km from the international border, located at Narowal district of Pakistan's Punjab province.
India is going ahead in signing the pact though it was strongly opposed to Pakistan's decision to levy a service charge of $20 on each pilgrim. India and Pakistan had planned to open the corridor in early November before the year-long celebrations to mark the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of Sikhism who spent more than 18 years at the Kartarpur gurdwara.
In a statement, the external affairs ministry on Monday said the government has taken the initiative to put in place state of art infrastructure and open the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor on the auspicious occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak so that pilgrims from India and those holding Overseas Citizen of India Card can undertake visit to the Kartarpur Sahib shrine in Pakistan.
The foundation stone for the Kartarpur corridor was laid in Punjab's Gurdaspur district by Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu last November
-inputs from PTI
