Islamabad
\nAs the December 22 Haj application deadline draws near, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony has decided to seek assistance to ensure increased participation of the Pakistani diaspora after only 2,800 Haj applications were received in the sponsorship scheme.
\nThe government in its bid to attract valuable foreign exchange in the wake of depleting forex reserves, has allocated 25,000 seats in the sponsorship scheme and those paying their dues in dollars from abroad will be declared as \u201cwinners\u201d without the need for ballotting.
\nWith such a low application count in the sponsorship scheme \u2014 coupled with 58,000 applications received under the regular scheme \u2014 the Ministry of Religious Affairs has written to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis to enlighten Pakistanis living abroad about the Haj application filing process, Geo News reported.
\nThe ministry \u2014 after approaching interior and foreign ministries \u2014 has also decided to seek the assistance of the Ministry of Information in this regard.
\nThe development comes as the government extended the Hajj application deadline by 10 days from December 12 to 22 earlier this week.
\nThe applications can be submitted on a passport valid till December 16, 2024, and the Haj application can also be processed on a passport application token.
\nAround 89,605 Pakistanis are expected to perform Haj under the government scheme which will cost around Rs1,075,000 \u2014 Rs100,000 less than that of the previous year.
\nFurthermore, the government has also introduced both long and short-term packages spanning over 38 to 42 and 20 to 25 days, respectively.
\nMeanwhile, women, for the first time in history, will have the opportunity to undertake the sacred journey without the traditional requirement of a male companion.
\nFurthermore, the government would provide free-of-cost mobile SIMs with roaming internet packages to the Pakistani pilgrims.
\nIt is pertinent to know that Pakistan has secured 179,000 Haj seats, with half reserved for private Haj operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad As the December 22 Haj application deadline draws near, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony has decided to seek assistance to ensure increased participation of the Pakistani diaspora after only 2,800 Haj applications were received in the sponsorship scheme. The government in its bid to attract valuable foreign exchange in the wake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-375047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n