The Ministry of Religious Affairs has so far arranged residential accommodation for 35,000 intending pilgrims in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. In the first phase, buildings would be acquired to house about 50,000 pilgrims, official sources told the newsmen here on Tuesday.
The accommodation for further 50,000 pilgrims would be made available in the next phase.
The sources informed that a special committee has accelerated its pace of work to acquire buildings for Pakistani pilgrims in Makkah.
According to officials the Saudi government has agreed to previous space of accommodation for Pakistani pilgrims which is 3 square meter for each pilgrim.
This year, the residential accommodation for intending pilgrims would be in two categories which would be named as 'Green and Yellow." The Green accommodation would be at distance of 800 meters while Yellow at distance of 1300 meters from Haram.
The groups of elderly pilgrims would be sent first and accommodated in the buildings near to the Harmain-e-Sharifain.
Under the government scheme, all the arrangements including accommodation, transport, tents, Haj passport, visa and flights would be made by the government.
While Haj Service Agents and Haj Group Organisers registered with the Ministry would be responsible for all the arrangements under private scheme.
The Ministry, however, would prepare passports for private scheme as performance of Haj on international passports is not allowed. Under the Saudi regulations, Haj Service Agents and Haj Group Organisers have been brought under a system for which the Ministry has started their registration.
All the applicants would have to produce their identity cards issued by Nadra. There would be no special quota for the intending pilgrims to perform their religious duty.
The intending pilgrims would be airlifted from Multan, Faisalabad and Sukkur to Karachi by special flights for their onward journey to Jeddah. Under the new policy announced for next five years, about 150,000 people would perform the next Haj from Pakistan.
If the number of applicants increases from 150,000 there would be a ballot.
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