As an interim measure, mines have been cleared from tracks to allow mule trains to deliver relief materials to the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India.

"We have constructed a mule track right up to the last point of the LoC," said Indian army officer S. Bhardwaj in the frontier village of Tulawari, as soldiers used dynamite to blast sections of the rugged terrain for road construction.

"We are widening this road to make it motorable right up to the Hatlanga Nallah (stream)," said Indian army spokesman Vijay Batra, referring to the intended crossing point that joins Uri district on the Indian side with Hajipir in the Pakistani zone of divided Kashmir.

"The mule track is operational. We have laid four small bridges over the stream and when both sides announce the date to open it, we will be able to hand over (supplies) to Pakistanis at the LoC," said Batra.

Both sides have agreed to pitch three to four tents at the transit point to be utilised by civil officials, customs and police for documentation and handing over of relief material.

India will also lay a vehicular bridge over the stream at the crossing point once it completes the final stretch of about a kilometer of road up to the LoC, Batra said, adding that the Pakistanis are also preparing a road.

"Both sides are in a state of preparedness," he said, adding that some 100 mules and ponies from Silikot, the last motorable point, will carry 30 to 40 tonnes of relief per day if and when the point is opened.

The arch-rivals on Monday opened a point at the LoC in southern Poonch district of India but only relief supplies were sent to Pakistan. A point further north, at Kaman Post, was opened Wednesday and a third, at Tithwal, is due to start operating on Saturday.

Another point linking Tattapani in Pakistan with Mendhar in India will be operational from November 14 while the Uri-Hajipir crossing is due to open on November 16, India's foreign ministry announced Wednesday.

For Kashmiris in Tulawari village, right on the LoC, that day can't come quickly enough.

"It is music to the ears that the two countries have agreed to open these relief points," said student Gulshan Ara, washing clothes near a stream in the village.

"I'd like to meet my uncle. But I am told we require permission. I hope both the governments clear the formalities as soon as possible. I have not met him ever and want to see him," Ara said at the village 134 kilometers (83 miles) northwest of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar.

"We have been urging the (Indian) army to open this road for us and allow us to meet our relatives," said Farida Begum, 55, a widow with seven children.

"Beyond that mountain ridge is a small village where most of my relatives live," said Begum, referring to a hamlet in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

"They are good," she said of the army as Indian troops erected a tent near her house for a makeshift school.

For Mathu Jinder, 70, of flattened Charunda village, it will be a "dream come true" if the relief point is opened.

"We don't want anything from that side. The (Indian) army has given us everything. But we are dying to meet our relatives," he said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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