PESHAWAR: Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Noorul Haq Qadri has said that the government would take full care of Haj pilgrims by providing them maximum facilities during their stay in the holy land.

He was addressing a media awareness workshop jointly organised by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Haj Organisation of Pakistan (HOP) at a local hotel here on Wednesday. He said that the pilgrims would get proper training before their journey for the pilgrimage. He dispelled the impression that the number of applications had dropped due to hike in Haj expenditure.

Mr Qadri said that a high-level delegation of Saudi government would arrive in the first week of April for holding talks on provision of ‘Road to Makkah’ facility at the Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar airports.

Minister says pilgrims to get maximum facilities during Haj

He said that presently the facility was available at Karachi airport where 28,000 pilgrims would go through the immigration and customs checking and they would not have not to pass through the same process after landing at airports in Saudi Arabia. He said that immigration and customs checking took 8-10 hours for pilgrims at Saudi airports and if the agreement was reached the pilgrims would not have to face long queues.

The minister said that the Saudi government had also provided e-visa facility to Pakistan. He said that the Saudi authorities had pledged to give accommodation to Pakistani pilgrims in the jurisdiction of Old Mina during Haj days besides providing them fresh food instead of frozen.

Mr Qadri said that a special SMS service (8331) had been launched through which the intending pilgrims could verify the authenticity of Haj group by sending its enrolment number on this number.

“We have 798 registered private Haj group operators and people should only apply through these groups,” Qadri said. He said that his ministry had also developed five Apps for facilitation of the pilgrims through which they could get information from starting their journey till performing Haj.

He said that media should also play its role in educating the people about facilities being provided by the government and private group operators for guidance of the pilgrims. He said that the ministry was trying to make some savings on different expenditures of Haj and if it succeeded in its effort the saved amount would be returned to the pilgrims.

The media workshop was also addressed by the ministry’s director media Imran Sehti and HOP zonal chairman Kamran Zeb.

On this occasion, a documentary was also screened containing guidelines for the pilgrims on how to perform Umra and Haj besides clearance at airports and stay in hotels.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2019