Very poor service from Khidmatul Awaam Pilgrim Services

Khidmatul Awaam Pilgrim Services

My experience with Kaps as a hajj operator has been extremely disappointing. From the outset they request payments. but do not acknowledge receipt of the funds. You have to contact them to confirm this. When requests for confirmation are sent some of their agents do not bother to reply. In particular Fatima promptly requested payment for the optional Al Joury accommodation. Payment was made and proof of payment submitted. A request was made to confirm receipt of the funds. No response to date. This led to problems in that my accommodation at Al Joury was not booked. We had to carry all our luggage down to the foyer by ourselves. When they were informed that we were not on the list for the Al Joury accommodation they only facilitated the booking at that stage.

At the Jeddah airport we as elderly people were kept waiting to take the train to Madina for several hours with limited seating facilities. No attempt was made to find some means to accommodate seating elderly travellers who had to stand for hours. Surely we could have been allowed to be seated downstairs where adequate seating was available.

In Madinah bookings were made for the Rowdah. The security personell stopped me from entry to the Rowdah as I did not have my ID tag. This was resolved but it would have been much easier if it was mentioned in the post that the ID tag was needed for entry. Instead Zunaid Kotwal angrily retorts 'Why do you think we give you the tags" A simple reminder to carry the ID tag would have made things easier. Don't expect us to know this with the deluge of information posted.

We left for Mecca soon after Jummah prayers. It was a long tiresome journey. Yaseen meets us in the Mecca bus with empty promises of much better service from him. We had to perform our ummrah with a meeting arranged for 2.00 am. He divides us into 3 groups. 1. Those pilgrims going onto the mataaf 2. Those that are using wheelchairs. 3.Those taking the electric scooters. We were told that someone would meet us to guide us to facilitate getting to the electric wheelchairs. No one was there. We walked for close to an hour to find the wheelchairs. We had great difficulty with communication due to language barriers. We eventually found the site to complete our ummrah with no help from Kaps. We choose a Hajj operator to guide and assist us in our journey. Instead they make things more difficult. Upon reaching Mina I asked Zunaid Kotwal where were the wheelchairs offloaded. He ignored me completely and just walked on. I eventually located the wheelchair once again without the assistance of my Hajj operator.

When we reached Arafat we were told to leave our wheelchairs outside the Sahuc clinic as it would not be possible to take it down due to the steep incline gradient. Two wheelchairs were left there. We observed that several people had in fact taken their wheelchairs down. Why is there dissemination of useless misinformation from Sahuc and Kaps. This has inconvenienced us immensely.

After settling in our camp we decided to bring the wheelchairs down. The wheelchairs went missing. We informed kaps. Nothing was done in spite of promises by Ruwaida Kotwal to send people to search for our wheelchairs. My daughter went searching and found one of the chairs near the Sahuc clinic with labels clearly sporting my wife's name. Piles of boxes were found stacked on the seat. The wheelchair was being used to transport boxes. I intended to donate my wheelchairs to Kaps for the use of future hujjajs but decided to do so anymore. There were many Kaps personell we encountered who were dedicated hard workers. In particular I was impressed with Suleiman Patel who clearly had the best interests of the hujajj at heart.

The same cannot be said about the leadership of this organization. Their blundering incompetence speaks hugely against their claims of doing this work for the love of it and Allah and to take care of the pilgrims They have no sense of proper planning. Sound systems were not working in the camps. Surely you could have purchased proper equipment to replace the faulty units. My hajj experience was marred by the Rocky ride imposed on me by this Hajj operator. I will surely not recommend them to friends or family members.