Pakistan’s foreign ministery had said that work on the corridor would progress as per schedule. Recent reports, however, suggest that progress at ground zero has slowed down.
Work on Kartarpur corridor has been going on for months on both sides of the International Border (IB) at the Dera Baba Nanak town in Gurdaspur district, where the corridor is being built to provide Indian devotees easy access to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, the final resting place of Guru Nanak. After India’s decision to revoke Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir – the country’s internal matter, Pakistan reacted by downgrading diplomatic ties and suspending trade through Kashmir. There are also reports that there is a ‘discernible slowdown’ in activities related to the Kartarput Corridor. According to news agency ANI, Amarinder has said that this should not happen as the project is of extremely high religious importance to the Sikh community.
Previously, both India and Pakistan had announced that the corridor would be opened before the 550th Parkash Gurpurb (birth anniversary) of Guru Nanak, which is on November 2019. Sources on Saturday said that India had issued a reminder after there was no response from Pakistan on technical level talks on the corridor.
Just last week, Pakistan’s foreign ministery had said that work on the corridor would progress as per schedule. At ground zero, however, reports suggest that there is a very visible slowdown in progress.