Vice President lays foundation stone of Indian side of Kartarpur Corridor

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Vice President lays foundation stone of Indian side of Kartarpur Corridor

Terming the corridor a bridge between the people of India and Pakistan, who have so much in common, the VP said it opens new doors and new possibilities

Monday November 26, 2018 6:55 PM, Agencies

New Delhi: Marking a new beginning in India-Pakistan relations and heralding the possibility of reducing the tensions between the two countries, Vice-President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu on Monday laid the foundation stone for construction of Dera Baba Nanak - Kartarpur Sahib corridor on the Indian side.

The corridor will provide a passage to pilgrims to visit the Sikh holy site of Gurudwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur in Pakistan. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will lay the foundation stone of the corridor in Pakistan side on Wednesday.

Describing the day as a “historic day”, the Vice President while laying the foundation stone, said, "It has been our long-pending demand that Indian Sikh sisters and brothers should be able to visit Kartarpur site with ease."

Pointing out that the demand for setting up the corridor has been discussed for two decades now, he observed that the dream which was pending for many years was getting fulfilled today. "It is a day like no other day. It is a truly path-breaking, potentially transformative moment", he affirmed.

Lauding Pakistan for accepting the demand of India to develop a corridor with facilities on their side, Vice-President Naidu said, "This is a corridor that connects to the Guru we revere, to the sacred space where he spent the last 18 years of his life."

Paying rich tributes to Sikh Guru Nanak, he described him as a saint, scholar, poet, guide and a revolutionary, who gave illumination to humanity for the last five and half centuries.

Terming the corridor as a bridge between the people of India and Pakistan, who have so much in common, the Vice-President said the corridor opens new doors and new possibilities, and promotes a new resolve to connect the people of our two countries through love, empathy and invisible threads of common spiritual heritage. "This is a corridor to the shrine of peace, harmony and humanism, to the universal vision of a world as one family, to the sublime ideal of service to humanity", he added.

Naidu also observed that from time immemorial India has believed that the whole world was one large family and asserted that today’s event was the reaffirmation of that conviction.

Lauding the Government of India for taking a number of initiatives to commemorate 550th birth anniversary of Sikh Guru Nanak, the Vice-President said his vision was timeless and more relevant today than ever before. He expressed his happiness that the Centre and the State Government were working together to construct the Kartarpur corridor in a true ‘Team India’ spirit.

The Vice-President stressed that India wants peace with all nations, including its neighbours. He said the killing of innocents in terror attacks needs to be condemned.

The Vice President said that the region was beset with challenges like poverty, illiteracy and gender discrimination, which needed to be addressed on a war footing. "The people in the region want peace and development and everyone should work in that direction", the Vice-President said.

Governor of Punjab V.P. Singh Badnore, Chief Minister of Punjab Capt. Amrinder Singh, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs (I/C) Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Vijay Sampla and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

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