Digital app launched to facilitate Haj pilgrims: minister

KARACHI: Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Aneeq Ahmed on Saturday said that under the digitising process for Haj facilities, an app has been launched to facilitate the Haj pilgrims.

The minister was addressing a press conference at New Haji Camp, where he said the app will guide the pilgrims from Haj flight to their stay in Saudi Arabia. “All other relevant details will be available on the app, including videos for the training of pilgrims,” he added.

The religious minister said that all the pilgrims will be provided a free single-colored QR code suitcase, so that they could easily identify their belongings. He further said that every pilgrim will be given a mobile SIM of a Saudi company for free, which will have 180 minutes for international calls.

“First of all, we reduced the price of the official Haj package by Rs100,000 as the cost of air ticket was Rs250,000, which was lowered to Rs200,000,” he added.

Talking about the building of New Haji Camp, the minister said the building is renovated and a vaccination centre has also been established for Haj pilgrims.

He said the ‘Interfaith Harmony Conference’ was organised under the auspices of the Federal Ministry for Religious Affairs, in which the ambassadors from 30 countries were invited.

Aneeq Ahmed said that ‘Interfaith Harmony Dialogue’ was started in the University of Karachi, NED University and Iqra University (Karachi and Islamabad campuses) and the discussion was also arranged in St. Patrick’s Church, in which Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Hindu, Parsi and Jain scholars participated. “We conveyed the message of humanity to the world,” he said. He said that the project of establishing schools and clinics in mosques has been started from the Badshahi Mosque of Lahore, adding that dispensaries are being established at the local level in all the mosques of the country. “Federal minister for health and all provincial health ministers are onboard for this project.”