ISLAMABAD, Jan 13: Indian transport officials on Tuesday opened two-day talks with their Pakistani counterparts to extend an agreement on a recently revived cross-border bus service, an official said.
Both sides are considering increasing the fares and frequency of the bus service, Pakistani tourism officials told AFP. The Dosti (Friendship) bus first ran between New Delhi and Lahore in Feb 1999, when Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee rode the bus over the border to Lahore on a peace bid.
The Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) and Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) are likely to sign a protocol to extend the original 1999 agreement which is due to expire on Feb 16, a tourism official said on condition of anonymity.
"There are several proposals to increase the frequency of bus service, one is to run two buses thrice weekly or one bus on all days of the week," he said. PTDC deputy-managing director Azfar Shafqat told AFP the number of services may be increased on a "case-by-case" basis, when there were more bookings.
He said the Pakistani side had proposed a fare increase. One way fares from Lahore currently cost 950 Pakistani rupees. Flights between India and Pakistan resumed on New Year's Day and the Samjhota Express cross-border train service restarted this week.
Both sides made a historic breakthrough in their decades-old tensions when they issued a joint agreement last week on resuming stalled dialogue in February.
In the agreement Mr Vajpayee acknowledged that the dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir needed to be resolved with Pakistan, while President Pervez Musharraf vowed to eradicate terrorism from territory controlled by his government.-AFP
