Pushing further the initiatives of confidence building measures, India and Pakistan on Wednesday decided to launch the Amritsar-Lahore bus service on the first half of November but put off a decision on a similar service between Amritsar and Nankana Sahib, the birth place of Guru Nanak.
At the two-day official level talks, the two neighbours also decided to explore the possibility of putting in place a mechanism for ferrying Pakistani pilgrims to the famous shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer in Rajasthan.
Prior to the launch of the Amritsar-Lahore service, a trial run will be carried out in the second half of October, said Dilip Sinha, Joint Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, who led the Indian side.
With regard to the proposal for launching a bus service between Amritsar and Nankana Sahib, the two sides decided to continue discussions at the next round of technical level talks, Sinha told reporters after the technical-level talks.
For the bus service between Amritsar and Lahore, the two countries decided that each Indian passenger will have to pay a fare of Rs 750, while a Pakistani will have to shellout Pakistani Rs 900, he said.
During the talks, at which the Pakistani side was led by Mohammad Abbas, Additional Secretary in the ministry of communications, the two countries discussed the modalities including the route and security, official sources said.
At the first round in Islamabad in May this year, the two sides had agreed in principle to run the two bus services but had deferred their operationalisation to work out more technical details.
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