Simplify process to visit Sri Kartarpur Sahib, Punjab CM urges India, Pak
Darpan News Desk IANS, 18 Nov, 2021 02:03 PM
Dera Baba Nanak (Punjab), Nov 18 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Thursday urged the national governments of India and Pakistan to simplify the procedure for obtaining permission to pay obeisance at Gurdwara Sri Kartarpur Sahib.
The Chief Minister, while interacting with the media after returning from Sri Kartarpur Sahib, said this is a historic occasion as the corridor has been reopened after the pandemic.
However, he said that it is the need of the hour that both the national governments of India and Pakistan should make concerted efforts for simplifying the process to enable pilgrims for obtaining permission to pay reverence at this holy shrine.
Channi said it would help facilitate the pilgrims to visit this sacred shrine thereby saving their time, money and energy.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister also said the state government will soon start free buses from across the state to enable the pilgrims to pay obeisance at this sacred place.
He said these buses would ply till the corridor to facilitate pilgrims having permission to visit Sri Kartarpur Sahib.
Batting for opening of cross-border trade from Punjab borders, the Chief Minister said that both the national governments should deliberate on it to commence trade and commerce through it.
He said this will be helpful in ushering a new era of unprecedented progress and prosperity in the state. Besides, giving impetus to economic activity in the region it will also help in improving people to people contact between both the countries.
The Chief Minister also thanked the people of Pakistan and the administration for showering lots of love and affection on him and his family during their visit to Sri Kartarpur Sahib.
He also expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Imran Khan for taking this historic initiative of reopening the corridor.
Channi said he had been urging the Prime Minister since long to reopen this corridor thereby cherishing longtime aspiration of Sikh 'sangat' to pay reverence at this sacred shrine.
She reached Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, by air in the morning from where she headed straight to her daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's cottage located amid forests of pine and cedar on the suburbs of the Himachal Pradesh capital.
Channi took oath of office along with his two deputies -- one a Jat Sikh and another belonging to the Hindu community -- at a simple ceremony here in the Punjab capital that was delayed for 20 minutes owing to the late arrival of party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
