Me and my wife had planned to do Hajj this year. I was very much pleased to hear the announcements made by Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah while announcing the Hajj policy for the year 2011. He announced that charges for Hajj have been reduced by Rs 26000 as compared to last year and this year Hajj will cost Rs 212000. We managed to arrange the required sum after curtailing our own budged at short term borrowing from friends and relatives of Rs 424000. We went to National Bank of Pakistan Main Branch Lahore the other day and asked them for the Hajj Application Form. I was told that the application form will be provided only after showing them Machine Readable Passports (MRP) and that they will not accept the receipt of Passport Application. After hearing this verdict we both rushed to Passport office. Unfortunately the passport delivery date was extended. While I was leaving the passport office an agent approached me and inquired about the issue. I refused him first as it was against the voice of my conscience but finally I gave in. Finally, after taking a fee of Rs 500 he did the trick and brought my passport in 5 minutes. I would also like to request the concerned authorities that passports should be provided on priority basis to all Hajj Applicants. Meanwhile, we were in a state of dismay and went back to National Bank of Pakistan main branch to collect the Hajj Application Forms. We were again shocked to hear from the bank staff that there were two types of application forms. Green category in which residence would be provided within 2000 meters of Haram and White category in which residence would be beyond 2 KM from Haram. Charges for these categories were Rs 222047 and Rs 212900 respectively. After consulting my wife we decided for green category and she was also upset with this additional sum of money. While reading the instructions to fill those forms we were flabbergasted to read that each Hajj Applicant has to arrange additional Saudi Riyals up to 1000 for their expenditures during Hajj because as opposed to previous years Ministry of Hajj will not be returning any amount from the deposited sum. We did the math and came to know that actual expenditure for each Hajj Applicant is actually Rs 222000 + Rs 23000 (SR 1000)= Rs 245000, which is in excess of Rs 7000 than the previous year. So all the claims made by the Honourable Minister for Religious Affairs Mr Khursheed Shah were proven false. I am writing this to inform the innocent who want to perform Hajj this year to beware and arrange for additional amount of money for their hard earned earnings. FARHAN IQBALM, Lahore, April 17.