ISLAMABAD – The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony has postponed the balloting for the successful hajj applicants scheduled to be held on Wednesday.
The balloting for those who had applied for this year’s Hajj under the regular government scheme was scheduled for today, however, it has been postponed and the next date has not been announced yet. the deadline for submission of applications was April 2nd.
There were two schemes announced by government for this year’s Islamic ritual. The first one was regular scheme under which anyone could apply while the second one was Sponsorship Scheme under which payment was to be made in foreign currency from abroad; the quota was evenly distributed between both.
The official figures regarding Hajj applications are alarming as only 89,000 applications have been received so far under the regular and sponsorship scheme in different banks of the country. If the applicants fail to show interest in the Sponsorship scheme in next few days, the proposal to declare every applicant successful would be finalized.
The Sponsorship Scheme which apparently looked lucrative did not manage to attract sizeable number of pilgrims while the figures for regular applicants have also fallen this year.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Religious Affairs contacted the Ministry of Finance and asked additional $235 million to send pilgrims on Hajj and in case the funds are arranged, all pilgrims of the regular scheme could be sent to Hajj without balloting.
The Sponsorship Hajj Scheme was introduced to inject foreign currency into the dwindling foreign exchange reserves of the country under which it was announced that those who deposit money in foreign currency would not have to go through balloting.
It merits mentioning that this is the first time Saudi Arabia would be welcoming pilgrims in large numbers i.e around 2.3 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 immunised against the virus and did not suffer from chronic diseases were allowed to visit the kingdom.
