Captain Amarinder Singh To Lead All-Party Delegation To Meet Modi On Passport, Pak Fee Waiver For Kartarur Corridor

Punjab Vidhan Sabha Passes Unanimous Resolution, Cm Asks Sad To Take Up Issue Also With Harsimrat

5 Dariya News

Chandigarh 25-Feb-2020

Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh will lead an all-party delegation from Punjab to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek waiver of Passport and further simplification of  the process for visiting Sri Kartarpur Sahib, and to urge him to pressurize Pakistan to slash the $20 fee on Indian pilgrims.A resolution to this effect was passed unanimously in  the Vidhan Sabha on Tuesday.The Chief Minister, while intervening on MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala’s suggestion that the state government should take up these issues with the  Centre, asked him to simultaneously take up this issue with Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal in order to prepare the ground for early resolution in the larger interests of the  devotees.Meanwhile, moving the resolution, Punjab Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that after the Kartarpur Corridor had opened on November 9, 2019,  after decades of Ardas by the Nanak Naam Leva Sangat. The Corridor’s history would be written in Golden letters, he said.Pointing out that at present, any Nanak Naam Leva  devotee, who intends to visit Sri Kartarpur Sahib for Darshan-Didar, requires passport identification, besides paying a fee of 20 US Dollars, the resolution points out that many of  Punjab’s residents are such who do not possess passports and are deprived of visiting Sri Kartarpur Sahib despite being desirous of Darshan.Apart from this, devotees are facing  lot of hardships due to the difficult process of online registration, which is a major hurdle for devotees, as a result of which many devotees are not going for Darshan, the  resolution, which is Punjabi, further reads on translation.Through the resolution, the House strongly recommended to Punjab Government to take up these issues with the Union  Government so that the latter could impress upon the Pakistan Government to “remove the condition of passport and, in lieu of it, other documents like Aadhar card should be  permitted for identification.”The resolution also urges the Centre to take up with Pakistan the issue of slashing the $20 fee, besides simplifying the cumbersome procedure for  registration by the devotees on the website of the Government of India.