The cultivation of fruit trees has started over 10 acres of land at Kartarpur, tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal, just 4.7 kilometers from the Pak-India border, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Friday. 

In the next phase, four-star hotels and five more guesthouses will be built in the town, revered by members of the Sikh community as the shrine of Baba Guru Nanak, the first guru of Sikhism, is located there. 

The purpose of tree plantation and building hotels there is to facilitate the Sikh devotees visiting the shrine from all over the world, especially India, to pay their respects. 

A corridor (border crossing) was inaugurated at Kartarpur in November 2018 so that the Sikhs from India could travel to Pakistan without visa to pay their respects at the shrine. 

The idea of a border crossing at Kartarpur was first floated in early 1999 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pervez Musharraf, the prime minister of India and President of Pakistan, respectively, as part of the Delhi–Lahore Bus diplomacy. 

On 26 November 2018, the foundation stone was laid down on the Indian side by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ; two days later, on 28 November 2018, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan did the same for the Pakistani side. 

 

Reporter Yasir Arafat