Hajj ballotting: 112,526 applicants notified successful under government scheme

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Religious Affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri, on Tuesday announced names of 112,526 successful applicants who will perform Hajj under the government scheme this year, ARY News reported.

Addressing a press conference here, the minister announced that as many as 112,526 people would perform Hajj under the government scheme while 71,684 people will go for Hajj under private Hajj scheme. In total, 184,210 people will perform Hajj from Pakistan this year, he said.

The ballotting, he said, was performed on 90,924 applications whereas the rest of the applicants were selected on special criteria of age and unsuccessful past applications.

As many as 216,542 applicants had applied to perform Hajj on government quota which is comparatively cost-effective than packages offered by private operators.

Qadri announced that a man named Waseem Ahmed from Karachi was the first successful applicant in the balloting.

The minister said all the applicants whose names came out in the ballotting would be informed through an SMS within three to four hours today.

Read: Banks receive 216,542 Hajj applications: religious ministry

He said the intending pilgrims who have been applying for Hajj for the last three years would be allowed to perform Hajj without balloting. Similarly, the pilgrims above 80 years of age will also be sent to perform Hajj without ballotting.

According to the minister, the highest number of applications, 108,006, was received from Punjab. The government received 49,343 applications from Sindh, 40,752 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 10,258 from Balochistan.

The minister added that 2,316 applications were received from Azad Kashmir, 4,314 from tribal districts of KP and 2,422 from Gilgit-Baltistan.

He stated that the Saudi foreign minister had promised an additional quota of 16,000 pilgrims for Pakistan. He said the government would also give a new quota of 5,000 to private Hajj operators.

According to the 2019 Hajj policy, intending pilgrims would pay Rs 436,975 for the government-sponsored scheme.

Qadri said a revolutionary step this year is that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman had announced to include Pakistani pilgrims in the Road to Mecca programme, under which the pilgrims will be provided customs clearance and immigration facility at Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar airports.