Gupta dicusses Integrated Check Post with Punjab officials

Attari-Wagah, Nov 24 (UNI) Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta today said that a lot of scope existed for promoting trade between India and Pakistan through this road joint border checkpost.

He made these observations while chairing a high level meeting of senior officials of the Punjab Government, the Railways and the Border Security Force (BSF) besides officers of the Customs and Immigration departments.

The meeting was called for chalking out a detailed plan for the proposed Integrated Check Post here. The Integarted Check Post would include both the current road checkpost as well as the Railway station at Attari.

Mr Gupta told the officials that the Integrated Check Post would be ready within a three year period. " The new checkpost would basically involve upgrading the facilities at the road checkpost and the Attari railway station", he said at the meeting.

The Union Home Secretary said that there was a need for upgrading the existing facilities as the volume of Indo-Pakistan trade through the road and rail route of Punjab in the next few years was likely to increase. The flow of tourists/visitors on either side of the border has gone up particularly after the introduction of buses between Lahore and Nankana Sahib in Pakistan and Delhi and Amritsar in India, he added.

Besides Mr Gupta, the Punjab government officials present in the meeting included Chief Secretary R I Singh, IGP (border range) R P Meena, Amritsar Deputy Commissioner K S Pannu and other senior officials. BSF IG (Punjab Frontier) Himmat Singh and senior Railway and Immigration and Customs officers also attended the meeting.

Union Secretary on Border Management, Jarnail Singh also attended the meeting.

UNI HS MMS1525