Indian, Pakistani officials talk Amritsar-Lahore bus service

India and Pakistani officials Tuesday held the second round of technical-level talks on commencing the Amritsar-Lahore and Amritsar-Nankana Sahib bus service, news agency Press Trust of India reported.

The Lahore-Amritsar bus service was proposed in the joint statement issued after talks between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi in April this year, when Musharraf visited India to watch a cricket match between India and Pakistan on the invitation of Indian government.

According to the news agency, the Indian delegation was led by Dilip Sinha, joint secretary in the external affairs ministry and the Pakistan delegation was headed by Mohammad Abbas, additional secretary in the ministry of communications.

Before meeting in New Delhi, the two sides had held parleys in Islamabad in May this year, where they had agreed in principle to run the two bus services but had deferred their operationalization to work out more technical details.

During the two-day talks, the two sides are expected to discuss in detail modalities and frequency of the proposed service from Amritsar to Nankana sahib.

While Amritsar lies in the Indian side of Punjab, Lahore and Nankana Saheb, which is also the birth place of the founder of Sikh religion Guru Nanak, lie in the Pakistan side of Punjab.

On the Amritsar-Lahore bus service, the two sides have to firm up the designated route, bus terminals, and facilities for the bus crew, modalities of visa arrangements and a protocol and memorandum of understanding, the agency said.

India's Punjab state, which lies in the north, shares a 574-km long border with Pakistan.

Since both India and Pakistan were one nation prior to 1947, there are million of divided families in each other's country.

According to officials, some 200,000 Indians and Pakistanis visit each other's countries every year.

In April this year, the two countries started a bus service between Srinagar city in the Indian-controlled-Kashmir and Muzaffarabad town in the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to help re-unite thousands of divided families in the Himalyan region.

Source: Xinhua