Secretary for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony, Sardar Ajaz Ahmad Khan Jaffar, has promised to install a recycling plant for sacred papers in Islamabad within a year.
He took up the issue of the public interest that has been delayed since 2016 while chairing a departmental meeting of the Development Working Party on Monday.
The meeting approved three development schemes including the establishment of sacred papers recycling plant in Islamabad, the construction of a new Haji Camp in Lahore, and the setting up of a solar tube well in the Haji Camp, Quetta.
He said that the sacred papers recycling plant will be built in line with the Shariah principles and operated scientifically.
“For the construction of recycling plant, a piece of 10 kanal land has already been allocated in the Haji Camp Islamabad and it would cost Rs. 331 million,” he added.
The secretary said that the Public Works Department (PWD) will construct the recycling plant, which will be completed within one year.
“The recycling plant would help dispose of the sacred papers of the Holy Quran in appropriate and respectful manners and decrease the blasphemous incidents to some extent in the society,” he said.
Sardar Ajaz Ahmad further informed that PWD will construct Lahore’s Haji Camp on 57 kanal land in Harbanspura with the estimated cost of Rs. 1,996 million in three years.
“The Lahore camp would comprise a residential block, training hall, cafeteria, mosque, and administrative block besides private banks and airlines counters etcetera. The boundaries of the Haji Camp Lahore had already been completed,” he added.
Further, a solar tube well is also being set up in the Haji Camp Quetta with an estimated cost of Rs.15 million.
The meeting was attended by the representatives the of finance and planning divisions, PWD, Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Council for Islamic Ideology (CII), and Pakistan Environment Protection Agency.
