M A I N   N E W S

Special flight to Nanded from Oct 29
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 23
In view of the ongoing tercentenary celebrations of Guru-ta Gaddi Diwas at Nanded, the government has agreed to start a special flight from the Capital to the Maharashtra town which is witnessing an unprecedented rush of pilgrims these days.

The flight for the time being has been scheduled between October 29 and November 4 and will take less then two hours to the destination.

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel has also agreed to start permanent flights to Nanded, where the historic celebrations commemorating 300 years of Gurta Gaddi started on October 20.

The demand for special flights was earlier raised by MPs from Punjab, including SAD president Sukhbir Badal, S.S. Dhillon, R.S. Ajnala and Paramjit Kaur.

Some of them even met Patel, seeking special flights to Nanded from a number of places, including Amritsar, Chandigarh, Delhi and Mumbai.

The government has agreed to a direct AI flight following a meeting with deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha Charanjit Atwal and has hinted at a strong possibility of the special flight being made permanent later.

It is learnt that the Punjab chief minister as well as all state MPs will board it
on October 29.

Meanwhile, Atwal today welcomed the gesture and said it would save Sikh pilgrims the hassle of changing flights en route Nanded.