Govt making efforts to enhance Haj quota

Islamabad: Sardar Muhammad Yousaf, Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony said that government was making efforts with Saudi Arabia to get enhanced Haj quota for Pakistan as per new population census. He said last year Pakistan's Haj quota was 189,210 and if agreed by Saudi Arabia, 27,000 more Hajis would get the opportunity to perform Haj. He condemned the Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and said that it has hurt the feelings of whole Muslim Ummah and the rest of the world. He was addressing business community at Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Sardar Muhammad Yousaf said that work on Haj Policy 2018 was in progress and assured that the proposals of business community for the policy would be given due consideration. He said Saudi Embassy has been asked to ensure biometric verification centers at district level to facilitate the Umrah aspirants. He said if verification was done in designated centers, there was no need to do biometric verification at airports as it was time consuming process. He said if India, Bangladesh and other countries have been exempted from biometric verification, then Pakistan should also be exempted from this practice. He said the facilities for Hajis would be further improved and ensured that ICCI delegation for Haj would be provided maximum facilitation.
Speaking at the occasion, Sheikh Amir Waheed, president, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry appreciated the efforts of the government to provide good facilities to Pakistani Hajis due to which people were preferring to perform Haj on government scheme. He said the condition of biometric verification for Pakistan Umrah aspirants by Saudi Embassy has created problems for them and urged that the Ministry of Religious Affairs should play role to ease problems of Umrah aspirants on this account. He said Ministry should consider giving a special Haj package to ICCI members so that they could be facilitated in performing Haj every year. He said ICCI was ready to provide its premises for organising trainings and vaccinations for Islamabad-based Hajis.