Increase in Haj quota has benefitted all states, says Govt

Saudi Arabia had on January 11 increased India's Haj quota by 34,005, taking it to 1,70,025.

New Delhi, Mar 10: The significant expansion of India's Haj quota by Saudi Arabia has benefitted almost all the states, the government has said. The Haj quota list of states was released on Friday.

A statement from the office of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the Union Minister for Minority Affairs, informed that the process of selecting pilgrims through draw of lots will start on March 14. Saudi Arabia had on January 11 increased India's Haj quota by 34,005, taking it to 1,70,025. The quotas for Uttar Pradesh has been raised to 29,017 from 21,828, for West Bengal the number has gone up to 9,940 from 8,905.

The number for Maharashtra has been raised to 9,780 from 7357, Gujarat to 10,877 from 7,044, Jammu and Kashmir to 7,960 from 6,359, Karnataka to 5,951 from 4,477 and for Rajasthan it has been raised to 4,686 from 3,525. Jharkhand (current 2719), Madhya Pradesh (2708), Telangana (2532), Tamil Nadu (2399), Andhra Pradesh (2052), Delhi (1224) and Haryana's (1011) quotas have also been revised to 3306, 3599, 3367, 3189, 2728, 1628 and 1343 respectively.

The states have been allotted Haj quota "with complete transparency", based on their Census data of 2011. The statement said the Haj Committee of India, which is looking after the pilgrimage-related affairs, has received a total of 4.48 lakh applications for this year. The maximum number of the requests have come from Kerala (95,236).

A total of 1.29 lakh applications were received online. Digitally too, Kerala sent highest number of applications (34,783). Nearly one lakh devotees had undertaken the pilgrimage to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last year from India.

PTI