ISLAMABAD, March 12: The designated authorities in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) will start issuing application forms for the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service travel permits from Monday.

The designated authority in Muzzafarabad, that is the deputy commissioner’s office, will start issuing forms for the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service from Monday, Foreign Office Spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani told Dawn on Saturday.

The spokesman said that for the convenience of people in other areas the forms would also be issued from all other offices of deputy commissioners in AJK. He, however, pointed out that the office of the Muzaffarabad deputy commissioner would be the main coordinating authority.

The government’s earlier plan to issue forms from this week could not materialize due to some hitches in inter-agency coordination, it is learnt.

In Srinagar, the designated authorities have already started issuing forms. The first lot was given out a week back.

According to government officials no fee would be charged for either the forms or the permits to be issued. The prospective passengers would just have to pay for the bus ticket. However, the ticket fare has yet to be decided by relevant AJK authorities.

The FO spokesman sounded rather amused when his attention was drawn to a report in a leading Indian daily about a proposal from Islamabad that President Gen Pervez Musharraf travels on the inaugural bus to Srinagar and from there flies to Jamshedpur to witness

the Pakistan-India One-Day International. “There are no such plans,” was the spokesman’s brief response.

The Muzaffarabad-Srinagar bus service, scheduled to be launched on April 7, would initially be run fortnightly and the travel permits issued would be valid for the same time period. However, officials involved in the process say the authorities on both sides would in the beginning show flexibility in this regard.

A decision has been taken that at the outset a 30-seater bus would run on this route.

Pakistan and India agreed last month to start the bus service between the two capitals of the divided Kashmir, the Indian Held Kashmir and Azad Jammu Kashmir. Under the agreement, the service would also be available to Pakistani and Indian citizens besides Kashmiris.

While all would travel on the same special permits, it is learnt that at the LoC checkpoints Pakistani and Indian nationals would be required to produce their passports for identification purposes. For now signals from both sides are that the Kashmir bus service will start on the scheduled date.

Diplomatic sources say it seems unlikely that India will allow APHC leaders to travel on the inaugural bus.

The proposal of the Kashmir bus service was floated by India in October 2003 as part of a series of confidence-building measures with Pakistan. Responding to it positively Pakistan announced the following month that it was ready to discuss the proposed bus link.

Bus service discontinued on this historic route in 1947 but foot crossing were allowed till 1953. At that time people also used permits issued by deputy commissioners to travel across what was then called the Ceasefire Line.

The agreement to re-establish the bus link is seen as a major Kashmir-related CBM that has injected some momentum to the ongoing India-Pakistan peace process.