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| November 23, 2002 | Saturday | Ramazan 17, 1423 |
Saudi firm plans ferry service for pilgrims
QUETTA, Nov 22: A prestigious Saudi company is planning to initiate a ferry service between Gwadar and Damam, a port city of Saudi Arabia, for Hujjaj and for people performing Umra round the year.
The company is owned by an important member of the Saudi royal family that showed keen interest in making significant investment in Gwadar, beginning with the ferry service for Hujjaj and Umra pilgrims.
Gwadar port is overlooking the Gulf of Oman and is around 200 nautical miles, for which the ferry could complete the travel time in less than 10 hours. It is meant to carry the bulk of Hujjaj and people interested in performing Umra.
The company is also showing interest in offering a complete package to pilgrims to Makkah by arranging their stay at Damam before they are transported to Makkah or Madina through road transport.
The Damam-Madina travel time is said to be around 10 to 12 hours, making it easy for the pilgrims to adopt this route.
The company will facilitate the stay of the pilgrims at Damam before they boarded luxury road liners for Makkah or Madina.
It will soon approach the federal government before launching the ferry service. Preliminary talks had been held between the officials of the ministry of religious affairs and the Saudi tycoon for launching the project. Finally, the proposal will be presented before the Pakistan government for approval so that the ferry service could start from the next Haj season.
Both the major airlines, the PIA and the Saudia, have increased their fares weeks back, making it difficult for the pilgrims to perform Umra during the current season.
The raise of several thousand rupees in the airline ticket gave a serious shock to the people who intended to perform Umra. Same is the case with Haj package with highest cost of airline travel.
On the contrary, the ferry service between Gwadar and Damam and again the road transport facility from Damam to Madina or Makkah will be much cheaper and less troublesome for the pilgrims, making it convenient to use these routes. A Pakistani pilgrim thought that the travel expenses could be much less than half.
It is not out of context to mention that around 17,500 Hujjaj will be performing Haj this year from Balochistan. More than 8,000 people from the province have gone for Umra during the holy month of Ramazan.
It has good business prospects for the Saudi company and people from other parts of Pakistan can also get this facility by reaching Gwadar, using road transport or a direct PIA flight from Karachi.
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