By IANS
New Delhi : An estimated 157,000 Indian pilgrims have begun leaving in batches from various parts of the country for the annual Haj pilgrimage that is subsidised by the government.
The government has made arrangements for 350 flights of Air India as also the Saudi Arabian Airline to ferry the pilgrims to and from Jeddah, from where they will travel by road to Medina and Makkah.
As many as 110,000 pilgrims will avail of the government facility. Some 47,000 pilgrims have made their own arrangements to travel to Saudi Arabia, official sources said.
The government annually facilitates the Haj pilgrims to board flights from airports as close to their cities as possible. Consequently, flights this year are being operated from 15 points in the country. Varanasi has been added this year to this list.
Air India is carrying pilgrims from Jaipur, Srinagar, Kolkata, Guwahati, Patna, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Nagpur.
Saudi Arabian Airline will operate from Bangalore, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad.
An expert committee had suggested hike in fares because of the phenomenal rise in petrol prices.
Saudi Arabian Airline, for instance, has put the return fare at somewhere above Rs 30,000 per pilgrim. But the Indian government through the Haj committees is charging only Rs 12,000 per pilgrim and paying the airlines huge subsidy.