By IANS
Hyderabad : As many as 157,000 Indian Muslims would perform Haj this year and all arrangements will be made to ensure their hassle-free pilgrimage to the holy cities of Makkah and Madina in Saudi Arabia, Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed said here Saturday.
Addressing the annual All-India Haj conference, he said India would send the second largest contingent of Haj pilgrims, the same number as last year.
While 110,000 pilgrims will be routed through the Central Haj Committee, the remaining 47,000 will go through private tour operators. The pilgrims will embark from 16 embarkation points with Varanasi being the new addition. Air India manages 10 embarkation points and the Saudi Airlines the rest.
The daylong conference attended by delegates from Haj committees of 28 states reviewed arrangements for this year’s Haj.
India’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia M.O.H. Farooq, Central Haj Committee chairman Iqbal Ahmed Saradgi, officials of the ministries of external affairs and civil aviation and representatives of various government bodies involved in Haj arrangements attended.
Ahamed said accommodation for 90,000 pilgrims had been arranged in Makkah and efforts were on to accommodate the remaining 20,000 pilgrims routed through the Haj committee.
The minister announced that starting this year the pilgrims would be informed of their accommodation before their departure. The Indian consulate general in Jeddah will also provide details of the accommodation on its website.
He urged the civil aviation ministry and Air India to avoid “the delays and cancellations encountered last year.”
Ahamed warned private tour operators that criminal proceedings would be launched against them if any pilgrim faced problems due to malpractices.
Referring to the demand form Andhra Pradesh to increase its pilgrims’ quota by 1,000, the minister expressed his inability, saying such demands had also come from other states. He said 190,000 people had applied to the Haj committee this year and 80,000 of them could not be accommodated.
Ahamed said it was due to the efforts of the united Progressive Alliance (UPA) government that the Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase the quota of pilgrims by 10,000 last year, though as per the norms India can have only 147,000 pilgrims.
“Saudi authorities sanction a quota of 1,000 Hajis for every one million Muslims and for India, where the Muslim population is 147 million, the quota comes to 147,000,” he said.
Central Haj committee chairman Saradgi said it was the unique characteristic of India’s secularism and democracy that the country was sending the second largest contingent of Haj pilgrims with full support from the government.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy said his government was providing all facilities from vaccination to issuing of boarding passes to Haj pilgrims under one roof. He reiterated his government’s commitment to work for the welfare of minorities.