PESHAWAR, June 2: The new Haj Policy envisages direct flights to Madina and an increase in the foreign exchange quota, says an official of the religious affairs ministry. Each pilgrim would get $1,500 instead of $1,200 foreign exchange during the upcoming Haj, said Abdur Rehman Abdi, joint secretary at the ministry of religious affairs, at a conference organized by the NWFP government here on Wednesday.

He said another major change in the new policy would be allocation of more space to each pilgrim in Makkah and Madina and added that these changes would result in an increase of the Haj expenditure from Rs111,000 to Rs126,000.

He said such conferences served to provide useful feedback to the ministry.

He said 150,000 Pakistanis would perform Haj in coming year and added that 90,000 of them would be under the government scheme while the rest would be taken care of by private tour operators. He said private tour operators would have to arrange for visas for the intending pilgrims.

Mr Abdi said that direct flights to Madina and acquisition of accommodations near Harmain Sharifain would save a lot of time of pilgrims.

About the facilities at the local Haji camp, he said work on phase-II of the Haji camp project would start soon while the existing one was being renovated.

NWFP Auqaf Minister Maulana Amanullah Haqqani also spoke on the occasion.