Distribute Indian quota of 150,000 Hajis among states/UTs: Syed Shahabuddin

By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,

New Delhi: Syed Shahabuddin, ex-MP and former Vice Chairman of Haj Committee of India, has demanded distribution of the Indian quota of 150,000 Hajis among all states and union territories in proportion to their Muslim population.

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Normally, this quota, fixed by the Government of Saudi Arabia, should be equally available to all Haj applicants and distributed among all states/UTs on the basis of their Muslim population, with the unutilized quota of some deficit states redistributed among the surplus ones in proportion to their surplus, a statement released on 12th June by the veteran Muslim thinker said.

However, over the last few years, only 100,000 or so seats are being utilized for Haj Chartered Flights and the balance of nearly 50,000 is arbitrarily and illegally placed at the disposal of Private Tour Operators (PTOs) to cater to the affluent classes who largely come from a few states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, said the former MP.

As a result, pilgrims who avail of the services of the PTOs voluntarily deprive themselves of the service of the Haj Committee, the Haj Mission and the Haj Medical Mission deputed by the Central government and of the Khuddam-ul-Hujjaj deputed by various State Haj Committees. Another impact of this malpractice is that many states are starved of their full Haj quota and are forced to beg the Central Government for ad hoc increase till the last minute. This pathetic situation should not arise if the entire Haj quota of 150,000 is distributed properly among all states, he said.

‘The Muslim community is not fully aware that because of free availability of foreign exchange for foreign travel, the Government of India does not fix any quota on Haj pilgrimage. However, because of the limitation of space in Mina and Arafat, the Government of Saudi Arabia in consultation with the Ulema, has set a general limit of one pilgrim for a population unit of 1000 on all countries. The Muslim population of India is estimated at 150 million, which generates a quota of 150,000,’ the statement said.

Since a pilgrim should be free to make Haj arrangements through a PTO of his choice, the unutilized balance after fulfilling the legitimate demands of all Haj applicants may, however, be made available to the PTOs that are duly registered for the next Haj by the Government after review of their performance by the Ministry of External Affairs/Haj Committee. The allocation to the PTOs should be in proportion to the number of Haj pilgrims serviced by them in the previous year.

State quotas out of 1,47,000 are indicated below (above 1000 only):