A new system with automatic sales and distribution points provides easy, around-the-clock access to Zamzam water for visitors during the holy month of Ramadan, said Majid Al-Hassani, Director of the King Abdullah Zamzam Water Project. The holy month is the time of peak demand for bottles of Zamzam water and large numbers of vendors cause continuous crowding near places where they are sold, he added. The National Water Company, which is operating the system, sells the bottles through a process that uses electronic cards for Umrah and Haj pilgrims and visitors to the Grand Mosque to speed up the purchasing process, Al-Hassani said. In the new system, visitors to the Grand Mosque and Makkah get bottles by buying magnetic cards from 20 windows, going to one of the 42 distribution points and inserting the card into a machine to get the holy water, he explained. All sale points are being operated, he said, stressing that there is a tremendous rise in demand for Zamzam water during the Umrah and Haj seasons. Automated sales and distribution points are in operation at all times, he said, and the new process is considerably more efficient than the manual operations it replaced. There are 30 salespeople working in three shifts, operating as many as 11 sales windows during peak times and at least six at all times, he added. Al-Hassani said nearly 60 Saudis have been employed in the project and work is continuing as per the plan, which includes automated operation of distribution points at the factory in Makkah. A storage warehouse has a daily capacity of 200,000 bottles and there is a central, automated warehouse for storing and distributing bottles produced at the filling site, he said. The SR75 million warehouse, which is equipped with air-conditioning, warning and firefighting systems, has five storage levels and distributes 1.5 million 10-liter bottles of Zamzam water, he added. __
