Saudi Arabia has rejected Bangladesh’s proposal to increase the quota of Hajj pilgrims. The religious affairs ministry, however, said in a statement on Tuesday that they were ‘continuing’ their efforts to increase the quota fixed by the Saudi government last year.
A total of 101,758 pilgrims from Bangladesh will be able to perform Hajj this year. But online applications of aspirants exceeded the quota by around 30,000. So, Dhaka had written to Riyadh to accommodate another 25,000 pilgrims.
The ministry has asked ‘qualified’ aspirants to complete all formalities by June 18.
On Dec 8 last year, the Cabinet approved Hajj packages for 2015.
The government will give opportunity to 10,000 Bangladeshi pilgrims to perform Hajj in 2015. The cost of government packages will be between Tk 300,000 and 350,000 (approximately) per person.
Those who will not be able to avail the government packages can go for Hajj by opting private packages offered by various Hajj agencies The lowest price for private packages has been fixed at Tk 296,206.
