Hajj applications for 2011 are three times more to quota

By Shafeeq Rahman,

Is the number of affluent Muslims increasing in India? There is no official data, but if one goes by the number of Hajj applications, the answer could be Yes. For Hajj 2011, the Hajj Committee of India has received till 12th August 2011 applications three times more than the quota. The orginal quota for the country is 104000 but 302616 people have applied for Hajj this year.

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In most of the states or union territories, the Hajj applications for 2011 are five to ten times more than their quota. For example, Kerala has the quota of 5918 Hajis but 41431 people have applied for Hajj 2011. Similarly, for Union Territory Daman and Diu, the quota is just 9 but 47 applications have reached the Hajj Committee.

Hajj is the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is the largest annual pilgrimage in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so.

In India mainly Hajj travels are organized by Central Hajj Committee of India under the aegis of central government through ministry of external affairs and only marginal number of pilgrims performs Hajj by private tour operators. Hajj is considered as one of the most complex organizational tasks undertaken by the Government of India outside its borders for which extensive arrangements are made both in India and Saudi Arabia. During the Hajj season, separate area of ten million passenger capacity is reserved for pilgrimage flights by all airlines to Middle East at Indra Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. There are 21 embarkation points across the country to carry the pilgrims from all states of India. The busy traffic points in season 2010 were Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai, Calicut, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Srinagar, Bangalore and Jaipur.

Being the third largest Muslim populated country, India’s share is large in number of Hajj performers in Saudi Arabia. Indians constitute around seven percent of the whole pilgrims who performed Hajj in 2010 in Saudi Arabia. Since the Indian society including the Muslims is becoming more affluent in recent years, number of applications is around triple to their allotted quota. To ensure the transparency, government of India allocates its country quota to different states according to the population share of Muslim and the successful candidates are selected through the method of Qurrah. Number of applications is exceeding beyond its allocated quota, specifically in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka which have more affluent Muslims. Bihar is the only state in the country which does not utilize its quota fully.

Details of excess applications for Hajj 2011 received by all states and union territories of India are given in the table below..

(Shafeeq Rahman is a professional researcher on India-centric socioeconomic and political databases. [email protected])