The government has told the Supreme Court that it is going to restrict the number of pilgrimages to the holy towns of Mecca and Medina through the Haj Committee of India to once in a lifetime as against the existing once in five years,in an effort to provide the benefit of subsidy to those applicants who have never performed the Haj. As many as 1.70 lakh pilgrims from India would perform Haj this year as per the quota received from the government of Saudi Arabia. While around 1.25 lakh of them would be travelling through the statutory Haj Committee,the remaining 45,000 would be using the services of private tour operators. In an affidavit,the Centre told the apex court that though the Haj pilgrimage was a five-day religious congregation,it was a year-long managerial exercise for the government. The governments response was filed in a pending special leave petition filed by the Centre challenging a Bombay High Court order that directed it to give allotment to certain private tour operators from the government quota in 2011. Though the Haj for year 2011 is over,the government had said it wanted to give a response in the matter to clarify the broad Haj policy. While the number of pilgrims has increased from 21,035 in 1994 to 1.25 lakh in 2011,the subsidy amount per pilgrims has also shot up from Rs 5,000 in 1994 to Rs 38,800 in 2011. Last year,the Haj Committee had received over three lakh applications for the pilgrimage. The seats were distributed among the states and Union territories on the basis of the Muslim population registered in the 2001 census. As the number of applicants exceeded the allowed number of pilgrims,a draw of lots had been held to select the lucky ones. Besides,the government had reserved 11,000 seats for different categories of quota,including pilgrims recommended by dignitaries and eminent persons. On the occasion of Haj,the government also sends a goodwill delegation that interacts with the pilgrims in order to understand their problems and conveys the same to the government of Saudi Arabia. The delegation sends a report to the government for making Haj better in the ensuing year,the affidavit said.
