• Charges include subsidy of Rs150,000 per pilgrim
• Flights from 6th

ISLAMABAD: Federal Min­ister for Religious Affairs Mufti Abdul Shakoor on Tuesday announced that the annual Haj pilgrimage will cost Rs860,000 per pilgrim under the government scheme, however the federal cabinet approved a subsidy of Rs150,000 for each person, and the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is scheduled to start its operations for the purpose from June 6.

Speaking at a press conference here, the minister said the government’s Haj package will cost between Rs650,000 and Rs710,000, explaining that the pilgrims were being provided subsidy as per the principles of Sharia, while the Council of Islamic Ideology’s (CII) decision that any Haj subsidy was not permissible was the CII’s own opinion and not binding on the government.

The minister said the mandatory expenditures on the part of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were 52 per cent of the total cost, while airfare was 21pc and other expenses 27pc.

“If the previous government would have been allowed to continue and not been overthrown the total expenditures would have gone up to Rs1.1 million,” Mufti Shakoor said.

As per the details shared by the ministry, the cost of Haj under the government scheme in 2019 was Rs455,924, Rs551,020 in 2020 and Rs860,177 this year.

Some of the new expenditures included this year are visa fee, transportation charges, miscellaneous charges and the arrival snacks amounting to around Rs88,000 per pilgrim. The minister said the high costs were a result of additional and enhanced charges for services in Saudi Arabia.

He added that Haj had been allowed after a hiatus of two years due to Covid-19 restrictions, but with a limited quota, which has been reduced from 180,000 to 81,132 pilgrims for Pakistan. Incidentally, the government has also reversed the traditional pattern of quota allocations, and the share of private operators has been enhanced to 60pc — or 48,679 pilgrims — and the remaining 32,453 pilgrims will perform the pilgrimage under the more economical government scheme.

The PIA is set to commence its Haj flights from June 6 from five major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta and Multan. A spokesman for the national flag carrier on Tuesday said the first pre-Haj flight will depart from Islamabad for Madina with 329 intending pilgrims. And these flights will conclude on July 3, he added.

The airline’s post-Haj flights from Saudi Arabia will commence from July 14 and conclude on Aug 13. Pilgrims from Pakistan will be transported to the Kingdom through the PIA, Serene Air, Air Blue and Riyadh’s Saudia airlines.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2022