ISLAMABAD – Minister for Religious Affairs and Inter faith harmony, Talha Mahmood has announced that all expenses for Hajj will be collected in US dollars instead of Pakistani currency from next year.
Addressing a post-Hajj press conference, the minister congratulated 160,000 Pakistani pilgrims on performing Hajj and lavished praise on Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman for the excellent Hajj arrangements.
The minister highlilghted that no untoward incident was reported during Hajj this year in Jamarat, the place where pilgrims pelt stones at pillars representing the devil.
Talha noted that most of the pilgrims seemed satisfied with the arrangements, adding that he had brought the Hajj quota to over 179,000 for the next year.
The minister said he himself visited hotels of Pakistani haajis (pilgrims) and performed Hajj as a common man though he was offered to perform Hajj as a guest of the state.
The Pakistani mission provided maximum assistance to Pakistanis during Hajj, he said and added that the problems of Hajj pilgrims came under discussion with the Saudi minister, who assured him of solving the issues in future.
The religious affairs minister asserted that he had paid his Hajj expenses as a minister and clarified that he did not allow anyone to perform free-of-cost Hajj and will not allow it in the future as well.
To a query regarding the delegation accompanying President Arif Alvi for Hajj, Mahmood said he had no idea of how many people performed Hajj as the president’s Hajj had nothing to do with his ministry.
For this year’s Hajj, a 50 percent quota had been reserved for the Sponsorship Scheme which was a special facility given to Hajj pilgrims seeking foreign exchange from abroad in the specific dollar account of the religious affairs ministry.
The government had set Hajj expenses at Rs1.175 million per pilgrim, 68% more than the last year’s expenses which apparently became a reason for many of Muslims to avoid performing the ritual amid skyrocketing inflation. Due to the same reason, there was no balloting for aspiring pilgrims this year and everyone who applied was allowed to perform Hajj.
It is noteworthy that this is the first time Saudi Arabia welcomed pilgrims in large numbers i.e. around 2.3m after the pandemic restrictions have been lifted. Around one million people joined the 2022 Hajj season and only those in age bracket 18 to 65 who were fully vaccinated or immunized against the virus and did not suffer from chronic diseases were allowed to visit the kingdom.
