LAHORE, Sept 29: The federal government has decided to privatize its Haj services and utilize resources and manpower of the religious affairs ministry "for highlighting real identity of Islam in the world".

Under the phased privatization programme to be completed in three years, the ministry will be a regulatory body, monitoring performance of the private sector operators to be involved in the Haj services.

In the first phase, being implemented this Haj season (04-05) the ministry will send 92,787 Pakistanis for Haj while the private operators will take care of around 57,000 intending Hujjaj.

In the next Haj season (05-06), the private sector share will be further increased, as against each person to be sent by the ministry for Haj, it will transport two. And from the 2006-07 Haj season the private operators will take care of the whole Haj operation.

An official of the ministry, who sought anonymity, alleged that the step was taken under US directions "to secularize" the sector. According to him, the US authorities had been pressing Pakistan and a Gulf state since 9/11 to hand over Haj services to tourism sector so that religious devotion for it could be "lessened" as much as possible.

The official feared that in the absence of strict regulations the private operators could fleece the people. Citing an example, he said a religio-political leader of Balochistan had minted millions of rupees by sending 3,000 people of his province through private operators after seeking special permission from the then prime minister last year. The man had charged Rs10,000 per intending Haji, he claimed.

No official at the local US consulate was available for comments on the allegation. The man who attended the call did not give his name, saying he was just an operator. Religious affairs minister Ijazul Haq was "in a meeting" when this reporter made attempts to seek his point of view.