Applications for the Hajj will be accepted by banks from March 16 until March 31.
The Minister has announced that voting will take place on April 5th.
ISLAMABAD:
179,210 Pakistani pilgrims will do the Hajj this year, according to Minister for Religious Affairs Mufti Abdul Shakoor, who also cited the high cost as a result of inflated costs in the kingdom and the weakening of the Pakistani rupee.
At a press conference to introduce the Hajj Policy 2023, the minister made the comments and mentioned that applications can be submitted from March 16 to March 31 at 14 authorized banks.
The minister announced that the scheduled date of April 5 would be used for the Hajj voting. According to the financial breakdown, the anticipated cost of performing the Hajj from the northern area (Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Rahim Yar Khan, Sialkot) is Rs. 1,175,000, while the cost of the northern region’s Sponsorship Hajj Program is about $4,325
He noted that the Sponsorship Hajj Plan (southern region) cost around $4,285 while the anticipated cost of the Hajj from the southern region (Karachi, Quetta, and Sukkur) was Rs1,165,000.
The minister promised that any money left over from the aforementioned Hajj package would be returned to pilgrims through the bank accounts they had previously provided. He also said that applicants for the Sponsorship Hajj Plan who did not have bank accounts would be given cash instead.
This time, he claimed, there had been a rise in facility costs both in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan due to global inflation. In addition to this, the Hajj package was significantly impacted by the decline of the Pakistani rupee’s value.
According to Abdul Shakoor, Pakistani pilgrims were not able to use the rail facilities previous year, but this year they were able to do so at Mina, Muzdalifah, and Arafat. He insisted that the pilgrims would be responsible for paying for this facility.
The Sponsorship Hajj Plan was implemented for abroad Pakistanis this year, the minister explained, and it would contribute to generating $194 million while the ministry required a total of $284 million.
He added that the remaining roughly $90 million had been promised by the Ministry of Finance to ensure the Hajj operation ran well.
According to the quota, he said that 179,210 persons would undertake the Hajj this year, and he added that this quota would be split equally between the public and private Hajj schemes at a ratio of 50% each.
He added that the Sponsorship Hajj Program was given a 50% quota in both the public and private hajj programs, or 44,802 seats in each program.
According to him, the Sponsorship Hajj Scheme provided a special opportunity for Hajj pilgrims who needed foreign currency from overseas and were deposited into a particular dollar account maintained by the ministry.
“Due to the remittance of the funds allotted in this account for themselves or their relatives in Pakistan, overseas Pakistanis will be exempt from the voting process. Dollar deposits from Pakistan are not permitted, “Said he.
According to Abdul Shakoor, the Sponsorship Hajj Program quota would be distributed on a “first come, first served” basis, which will be based on the time and date that the Hajj form is deposited in the bank.
After the allotted quota was reached, he continued, registration for the Sponsorship Hajj Scheme will be halted.
This year, he claimed, there was no higher age limit for pilgrims from Pakistan since Saudi Arabia had eliminated the 65-year restriction.
