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'Distribute Entire Saudi Arabian Quota of 150,000 among Haj
Applicants, Release Only Unutilized Balance to PTOs'
Bhopal, June 13 (Pervez Bari): Syed Shahabuddin, ex-Member of
Parliament and former Vice Chairman, Haj Committee of India, has urged
to make the entire Saudi Arabian quota of 1,50,000 available for the
Haj applicants of India from various states/Union Territories, (UTs),
in an equitable manner.
Shahabuddin in a statement said that in the raging debate on Haj
Management, this aspect of proper Haj quota distribution has been
totally lost sight of. This is one of the many reforms that is
urgently needed in the management of Haj quota distribution, he added.
He strongly suggested that every State Haj Committee should press the
Central Haj Committee, Mumbai, and the Ministry of External Affairs to
distribute the entire quota of 1,50,000 (minus about 2,500 for Haj
staff and the VIPs). The supply will them meet the demand of all
surplus states, except a few, and thus solve their problem.
The statement 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 1,50,000.
Normally, this quota 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.
However, over the last few years, only 100,000 or so seats are being
utilized for Haj Charter 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. Even the allocation of quotas to the PTOs is done in
an arbitrary manner in order to favour some selected tour operators.
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 Centre and of the
Khuddam-ul-Hujjaj deputed by various State Haj Committees. Many states
are, thus, 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
1,50,000 is distributed equitably among all states.
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 who 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, the
statement added.
State quotas out of 1,47,000 are indicated below (above 1000 only);
1.UP 32,819
2.West Bengal 21,609
3.Bihar14,647
4.Maharashtra10,959
5.Assam 8,791
6.Kerala 8,364
7.Andhra Pradesh 7,463
8.Jammu & Kashmir 7,260
9.Karnataka 6,903
10.Rajasthan 5,107
11.Gujarat 4,897
12.Madhya Pradesh 4,101
13.Jharkhand 3,983
14.Tamil Nadu 3,702
15.Delhi 1,298
16.Haryana 1,298
17.Uttarkhand 1,077
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