by Staff Correspondent,

Dhaka – More than 127,000 Bangladeshi devotees will be entitled to perform the haj, one of the major Muslim religious rituals, in Makkah, the birthplace of prophet Muahmmad, this year.

Some 15,000 of them will go for the pilgrimage under the government arrangements, while 112,198 others will perform the ritual under the private sector managements in the late June.

But the cost of doing the Muslim religious pilgrimage this year is getting costlier amid the global financial downturn triggered by the Russian war in Ukraine.

Bangladeshi government has fixed the haj package under the public arrangement at 683,018 taka, which was 586,340 taka in 2022.

The Covid-19 pandemic had put the pilgrimage on hold as the Saudi Arabia barred people from other countries to travel to the Gulf nation.   

This year, Bangladesh’s economy is under pressure because its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic was challenged by the Russian war in Ukraine, leading to a sharp widening of current account deficit, higher inflation, depreciation of currency (taka) and the decline in foreign exchange reserves.

State Minister for Religious Affairs Faridul Haq Khan said the immigration of the pilgrims will be done at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport as per the Makkah Road Agreement.

He was presiding a meeting of the haj management committee as the government of Bangladesh signed the hajj agreement with Saudi Arabia on January 9.

This year hajj will be performed on June 27, subject to the moon sighting.  

The ministry informed the private agencies, those who run the hajj management, can be able to fix the cost of the hajj package in the private sector.

M Shahadat Hossain, the president of Hajj Agencies Association, said his platform will announce the cost of hajj package at a press conference on Thursday.