All those who applied will perform Hajj this year: minister

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Sardar Yousuf, Tuesday announced that all those who applied so far would be able to perform Hajj this year, Geo News reported

Addressing a press conference here, Yousuf said 60 percent of the aspiring pilgrims would perform Hajj under the government scheme whereas 40 percent through private Hajj operators.

It must be mentioned that the government has revised Hajj quota for the year 2013 following a 20 percent reduction in Hajj quota by the Saudi Arabian authorities.

The minister said due to 20 percent reduction in Hajj quota the number of intending pilgrims had been reduced from 179210 to 143368. Thus private Hajj operators had been allotted a quota of 57,347.

During the press conference a group of protesting private tour operators barged in the press conference room chanting slogans against the government for reducing their quota. They were demanding a restoration of their previous quota.

Sardar Yousuf said that so far 4,3749 Hujjaj have been booked by private Hajj operators while only 21,000 had applied with dues under private Hajj scheme. Under government Hajj scheme130 a quota of 86, 021 has already been completed.

He said Saudi government had fixed 8th of this month as deadline for receiving the details of Hujjaj.

He added that private Hajj operators had so far not completed the allotted quota and had also failed to provide details of accommodations hired by them for Hujjaj in Makkah and Madina. He said the protest by the private operators was unjustified.

Earlier, Joint Secretary Hajj, Shahzad Ahmed told media that Pakistan would incur losses worth Rs1 billion after this 20 percent reduction in quota by Saudi Arabia.