Jaipur no more a boarding point for Haj pilgrims

Jaipur: Hajis from Rajasthan will now have to walk an extra mile to reach their destination in Saudi Arabia. The new

Haj

policy 2018-22 has scrapped Jaipur as the embarking point for Hajis to board flights for Haj. It means that over 5,000 pilgrims from the state have to travel to Delhi for Haj flights. The policy proposal has shocked the Muslims who were expecting the Centre to announce Udaipur as the second embarkation point in Rajasthan.

Muzaffar Bharti, president of Maulana Azad Kalyan Sanstha questioned the intention of the government behind bringing the policy. “The policy proposal is ill-fated and discriminatory. It is meant to harass the Muslim community. The scrapping of Jaipur as the embarking point will not only affect 5,000 Hajis but also their families. Every pilgrim is accompanied by at least 10 people to see him/her off,” said Bharti. Muslim groups contended that Rajasthan, which is the biggest state in the country, needs its own embarking point. The absence of embarking point will make it expensive for them to board flights from Delhi.

Member of the Haj Committee, Shaheen Khan says that they will pitch for retaining Jaipur as the centre. "We have expressed our displeasure to the Central Haj Committee and apprise them that in the last two days the state committee has been flooded with the phone calls asking us to register our protest," said Khan.

Many agree with the policy of scraping of the Haj subsidy. However, they demanded that pilgrims should be allowed to choose the airlines. “Central government grants subsidy on air tickets as the plane goes twice for ferrying single batch of passengers. It goes with the passengers from India and returns empty, again it goes without passengers to Saudia Arabia and brings the pilgrims from the destination,” said Gulam Nazimuddin, former Haj Committee member of Rajasthan.

The policy has been made keeping in mind the Supreme Court direction in 2012 of gradually doing away with Haj subsidy. The Central Haj Committee has stated that they will make efforts to ensure that removal of Haj subsidy will not burden the poor. Sources in the present Haj committee say that Central Haj Committee has expressed their interest with Saudi Arabia for the travelling via ship.