ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s religious affairs minister said on Sunday that pre-Hajj arrangements for pilgrims performing the pilgrimage under the government scheme this year were in the “final stages,” vowing to ensure the best possible facilities for people.

The annual Islamic pilgrimage is expected to take place this year in June. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed the Hajj Agreement 2025 in January, according to which 179,210 Pakistanis are expected to perform the pilgrimage this year. The quota was divided equally between government and private schemes.

“All pre-Hajj arrangements both here and in Saudi Arabia are in their final stages,” Sardar Muhammad Yousaf, Pakistan’s minister for religious affairs, told reporters at a press conference in Lahore. 

He said around 90,000 pilgrims were expected to perform Hajj under the government’s scheme this year, promising to ensure the best possible facilities for them. 

“And there too every year, the Saudi government makes the best possible arrangements and provides pilgrims with better facilities,” the minister said. 

The minister said Hajj operations will begin from Apr. 29 when the first flight will depart from Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore. 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday constituted a three-member inquiry committee to probe why Pakistan had failed to comply with the Kingdom’s Hajj 2025 policy and, as a result not availed a large number of private Hajj quotas for pilgrims. 

“The prime minister has constituted a committee and directed them to present a report on the matter within three working days,” Yousaf said. 

Responding to Pakistani nationals who travel to Saudi Arabia on an Umrah visa and are found begging there, the minister said that the government has taken strict notice of it. 

“If any [tour] company here takes such [beggars] it will be blacklisted and fined,” Yousaf said. “And any person caught there will be deported.”