By TCN Special Correspondent,
Lucknow: In a significant development, the State Haj Committee (SHC) announced on Tuesday 4th January that only international passport holders will be allowed to perform Haj in 2011. The decision has been taken after the Haj Committee of India (HCI) made the international passports mandatory for the pilgrimage and directed the state committees to apprise the Haj aspirants.
The dual lottery system for selecting the pilgrims too has been replaced by a single lottery. The Haj aspirants will now have to fill just one application form which will be valid both for Qurrah and Haj.They will be issued a cover head with a special number. They also need to submit a cancelled cheque of their account so that the refunds if any are directly credited to their account. Earlier, the committee used to send refunds through cheques which were delayed or often misplaced.
The devotees also need to provide two mobile numbers which will be used for sending them updates by the Haj committee.