Al Haram Al Sharif to undergo expansion

Makkah: The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has started procedures for the expropriation of an additional 130 real estates to facilitate the expansion of the Al Haram Al Sharif Mosque in Makkah.

The ministry has directed owners of the real estates to contact the Committee for the Development of the Northern Courtyards of the Al Haram Al Sharif in order to complete the procedures of expropriation of their properties for the sake of the largest ever Haram expansion, ordered by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, early this year.

The ministry has notified the owners of the buildings that power and water connections to these buildings will be disconnected effective from Safar 1, at 2.30pm.

It also urged 17 owners of real estates to complete procedures for receiving their compensation.

Mansour Abu Rayash, chairman of the real estate committee at the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and member of the committee to estimate values of real estates, said that the committee had completed fixing value of 130 real estates and presented it to the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs to finalise the compensation for the owners.

The General Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques is supervising the massive expansion project, which has been awarded to the Saudi Binladin Group.

The group had already completed the demolition of a total of 1,050 buildings, representing 95 per cent of the total real estates designed for demolition in Shamiya and Shubaika areas.

It had stopped demolition works temporarily on November 18, considering the peak season of Haj and to facilitate smooth flow of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to and from the Al Haram Al Sharif.

Compensations amounting to about SR6 billion (Dh5.88 billion) had already been distributed among the owners of these real estates.

At present, there are only five per cent of the works earmarked for demolition remain.

The Binladin Group plans to complete demolition works before the beginning of next Ramadan.