Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has favoured establishment of linkages between Punjab regions in both India and Pakistan for mutual socio-economic development and prosperity.

“There is need to establish linkages, in particular, infrastructural, between two Punjabs with the consent of both Indian and Pakistani governments,” he said at an interactive session in Chandigarh on Saturday.

“It is high time both the Punjabs need to come closer for socio-economic development and prosperity.

“Besides having a common language and even dialect, the two are geographically proximate, culturally integrated and economically inter-dependent,” Badal said in his inaugural address.

He said linkages between two Punjabs should not in any way be misconstrued as weakening the two independent sovereign nations.

This should be viewed as strengthening of both India and Pakistan, Badal told the session on “Infrastructure Linkages Between Two Punjabs”.

Both countries should take initiatives to make their borders “soft, secure and peaceful” to give a boost to economy, he said.

Badal exhorted economists, intellectuals and political analysts to come forward for creating such an atmosphere which would further boost people-to-people contacts.

Referring to the “unfortunate incident” of partition in 1947, he said this should be accepted as a historical fact.

The entire north India, in particular Punjab, would gain much more from expanding trade with Pakistan and beyond, Badal said.

Initiation of joint projects would offer enormous opportunities for expansion of trade, the Chief Minister said.

He asked the Union government to take up with Pakistan the issue of opening up of Hussaniwala border like the Attari border to accelerate trade.

Such a move would certainly propel overall development especially in Ferozepur, Amritsar, Taran Tarn and Gurdaspur districts which had suffered enormously since partition, he said.

On the occasion, Badal also released a book “Economic Cooperation and Infrastructure and Linkages Between two Punjabs: Way Ahead”.