Bus to Lahore embarks on historic journey

NEW DELHI, FEB 18: Perhaps, for the first time since Henry Ford built his model-T, has an automobile been expected to break so many barri...

NEW DELHI, FEB 18: Perhaps, for the first time since Henry Ford built his model-T, has an automobile been expected to break so many barriers. And the bus to Lahore is already on its way to doing so at Wagah on Saturday.The golden-brown luxury coach with the Indian tricolour painted on the sides and Sada-e-Sarhad call of the border inscribed next to the Indian and Pakistani flags embossed below the front windshield left for Amritsar this evening.

It will wait there till Saturday for its first celebrity passenger, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. And this will mark the beginning of the Delhi-Lahore, four-days-a-week bus service: the Golden Jubilee Service of the Delhi Transport Corporation DTC. On Saturday, the bus will go upto Wagah, from where Vajpayee will travel by helicopter.

DTC officials proudly displayed the bus before Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in the Old Secretariat today, before it left for Amritsar. 8220;It is a historic occasion, a big step towards improving Indo-Pakrelations,8221; said Dikshit, shielding the disappointment of several Congressmen and Delhi Government officials who were hoping to accompany the PM in a second bus.Her colleague and Delhi Transport Minister Parvez Hashmi was conspicuous in his absence. DTC Chairman G S Cheema tried hard to offer an alibi. He said: 8220;The Ministry of External Affairs and the PMO are handling this trip. They said one bus would be enough.8221; Hashmi, who had planned to join the inaugural trip, later said that there was no point in going without regular passengers. And so, two police vans escorted the bus, without Hashmi, out of the Old Secretariat compound in the afternoon. Driver Ajeet Singh, in a cobalt-blue uniform and matching peak cap, sat behind the wheel. 8220;We are happy to have the Prime Minister as our passenger,8221; said Singh. His partner Hasan Zaidi, an inter-state driver for Delhi-Amritsar buses, said: 8220;I am no novice to this route.8221;

Both the drivers have been handpicked. They were at the wheel on the dry run8217; lastmonth. They will take turns to drive the bus during its 11-hour trip across 850 km of Indian and 100 km of Pakistani territory, before reaching Lahore. On the first trip, they will drive Vajpayee for the 37-km stretch between Amritsar and Wagah border. Besides the drivers, a liaison officer and two escorts will be the permanent members of the staff in the bus. On Saturday, however, senior DTC officials will also be present to welcome the Prime Minister and his entourage.

The bus has been built by the Azad Group, a branch of the Jaico Automobile Engineering Company based in Bangalore. Says N R Sharma, production manager of the company that supervised the designing: 8220;We were given an Ashok Leyland chassis. Everything else has been built by us.8221;

He added: 8220;But it8217;s no big deal. We have built similar buses for several countries. We have built only two for the DTC so far. Each costs around Rs 20 lakh.8221;

The DTC chairman, however, says that for the 37 passengers who can travel on the bus between Delhi andLahore, it is a very good deal, provided they can afford the Rs 800 per head.

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8220;There is an air-conditioning system, a heating system, two-channel music with individual earphones, a television, and air suspension which will make the ride very comfortable,8221; said Cheema, 8220;Anyone with a valid visa and passport will be allowed to travel. The bus will stop at three places and we will provide the refreshments.8221;