India is prepared to meet Pakistan “halfway” to build mutual confidence and improve relations, Union home minister P. Chidambaram said on Friday, signalling a new mood of conciliation in the corridors of power in New Delhi.
Speaking at the inauguration of a new `6.22-crore visitors’ gallery adjacent to the national memorial dedicated to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev at the Hussainiwala border in Ferozepur, Mr Chidambaram expressed confidence that improved relations between the two nuclear-capable neighbours would also boost India-Pakistan trade ties.
“As things improve we could go more than half the way to have better relations with Pakistan. Trade must resume and I sincerely hope this will come sooner than later,” the home minister said, indirectly acknowledging Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal’s call to establish a second trade route, akin to that at the Attari-Wagah border, at Hussainiwala.
Also conceding that people living in border areas “carry with them a special burden and responsibility”, Mr Chidambaram said Punjab had been raising the difficulties in border villages, including the problems faced by farmers in cultivating their farms located beyond the electrified security fence.
He instructed the director-general of the Border Security Force, Mr Raman Srivastava, to consider extending the permitted farming hours in such areas from the existing nine-and-a-half hours to 12 hours every day, alongside the technical feasibility of allowing electricity connections to operate tubewells beyond the fence.
Significantly, Mr Chidambaram’s words of conciliation and the possibility of opening Hussainiwala as a second trade route between the two Punjabs have come as India’s fresh vegetable exports to Pakistan registered a major boost.
Reports from the Attari-Wagah border near Amritsar said nearly 100 truckloads of Maharashtrian tomatoes are being sent across to flood-ravaged populations in Pakistan each day. Trade in other goods, including onions, potatoes and goat meat, has also picked up in a major way.