Amritsar: To attract worshipers from India to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, the Pakistani government has decided to celebrate ‘JASHAN-E-BAYARAN’ (Basant), marking the arrival of spring.
While expressing concerns over a significant decrease in the number of worshipers who visited Kartarpur Sahib after corridor’s improvement, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from the Project Management Unit (PMU), Muhammad Latif, said on Friday that they would celebrate ‘Jashan-focal’ or The first spring, celebrated by Muslims, Sikh and Hinduism, in Kartarpur corridors in February.
By stating that only 73 worshipers arrived in Kartarpur corridors on Friday from India, said Latif since it was reopened, only 200-plus worshipers had arrived every day on average.
CEOs expressed the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Coronavirus behind the decline in the number of worshipers.
Claiming that they never returned an Indian worshiper if they did not carry a negative RT RT report, the CEO said they themselves did a fast fast RPT PCR test on the border to comply with Covid guidelines.
“Besides that we also don’t want worshipers to lose to fulfill their religious aspirations even though they reach so close to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib,” Latif said.
He claims that PMU has made arrangements facilitate 5,000 worshipers a day.
“Various Indian organizations want to visit in Jathas more than 500 worshipers but it seems that Indian authorities only allow 200-plus worship per day,” he scaly.
Inaugurated on November 9, 2019, Kartarpur corridor was temporarily closed on March 16, 2020, as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of the Coronavirus.
The newly built corridor allows Indian worshipers to travel around 4.5 km in Pakistan to pay respect at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib where Sikh’s first teacher, Teacher Nanak Dev, has spent around 18 years until his death.
On October 2, 2020, the Pakistani government announced unilaterally opening the Kartarpur corridor but India denied to reply to the signal.
On November 17, 2021, India reopened its side from Kartarpur’s corridor for pilgrimage during the day.
The CEO said that even though there was an economic stagnation, the Pakistani government spent a large number of maintenance of Kartarpur corridors, which specifically created a separate department.
“We have more than 1,000 dedicated staff, including security personnel, who need a cost of between 5 to 6 crores at Pakistani rupees per month,” CEO said.