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Thursday, March 28 2024
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2015 Haj Pilgrimage flagged off at the Mangalore International Airport

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Mangaluru: The Haj Committee vice Chairman, M.M. Ahmed announced today that the Haj Committee of India will send only 1,00,020 pilgrims for Haj this year, against the annual quota of 1.45 lakh pilgrims, due to the massive construction work going on at Mecca currently.
haj pilgrimageSpeaking to press persons on the sidelines of launching the Haj pilgrimage from Mangaluru International Airport on Sunday, he said that the construction forced all countries to cut down on the number of pilgrims this year. “Saudi authorities have effected a 20 per cent cut for all nations this year. Locally, the quota has been cut by 50 per cent,” he said.

On the inaugural day on Sunday, 134 pilgrims, including 79 men and 59 women, left for the pilgrimage. In all, 666 pilgrims would leave for the pilgrimage from the airport from August 16 to August 20. They were from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Kodagu, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan districts.

The flights from here would carry them to Prince Mohammad Bin Abdul aziz International Airport, Madinah.  U.T. Khader, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, said that in addition to teams of doctors from Karnataka, who attend to the pilgrims from the State, an officer from Dakshina Kannada would leave shortly.

Ahmed, said that private tour operators were taking 34,000 pilgrims this year against 35,000 earlier. He added, “the quota might be restored next year as the construction was expected to be over”.

Referring to arrangements made for pilgrims he said: “We have arrangements with Saudi Airlines and a local catering group there which will provide home food to Indians there by employing Indian cooks for convenience of the pilgrims.”

Two categories

The Haj Committee had created two categories — Greens and Aziziya for the benefit of pilgrims. While pilgrims in the Greens group need to pay Rs. 2.13 lakh, those in Aziziya group have to shell out Rs. 1.83 lakh. The pilgrims in the Greens group would be housed in accommodation closest to the Grand Mosque in Medina and would start their Haj pilgrimage from there, and the rest in accommodations slightly farther from this Grand Mosque, he said.

The Haj Committee of India will sanction at least Rs. 1.5 crore for building a Haj Bhavan near the old terminal building of the Mangaluru International Airport, according to its vice-chairman M.M. Ahmed. He said that if the State government handed over the land to the committee the bhavan could be built.

He said that the committee normally gave a maximum of Rs. 3 crore for building any Haj Bhavan in the country. Since Mangaluru was a small airport and the number of Haj pilgrims was not huge the committee would ensure a minimum of Rs. 1.50 crore for the purpose.

Land allotted

B.A. Mohiuddin Bava, MLA, Mangaluru City North, said that the State government had allotted 1.94 acres near the airport for constructing the bhavan.

Presently the land had been allotted to the Department of Minorities which had to transfer the land to the committee.

A meeting to speed up the process of transfer would be conducted shortly.

Minister for Forests, Environment and Ecology B. Ramanath Rai, Minister of State for Youth Empowerment and Sports K. Abhayachandra Jain, J.R. Lobo, MLA, Mangaluru City South, K. Vasanth Bangera, MLA, Belthangady, Mayor Jacintha Vijaya Alfred, Ivan D’Souza, MLC were present.

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