[1]Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa has on Saturday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to enhance the quota of Hajj pilgrims to the state in view of increasing requests from the community to visit the holy land.
“The Tamil Nadu State Hajj Committee this year has received more than 12,100 applications for Hajj 2012. The Hajj Committee of India, Mumbai, has allotted a quota of 2,863 seats for Tamil Nadu. Needless to say, this is woefully inadequate,” she said.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, a copy of which was released to the press, the chief minister said as per the guidelines for Hajj 2012, out of the total quota of 2,863 seats, 1,146 seats would be apportioned for reserved categories and about 1,717 seats would be dispensed for selection under the general category. The number of disappointed applicants would be around 9,243, she said.
During 2011, the Hajj committee initially allotted 3,049 seats against a receipt of over 10,000 applications from Tamil Nadu.
After the release of additional quota and government discretionary quota, a total of 4,084 pilgrims from the state were able to perform the pilgrimage last year, whereas the quota for 2011 was 2,863, which is an all time low.
“I therefore request your kind intervention to enhance the quota taking into account the sizable Muslim population and the large number of applications received from Tamil Nadu for 2012,” she urged.
The union external affairs ministry might be requested to release a suitable additional number so that a greater number of pilgrims from the state benefited by undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage, Ms Jayalalithaa pleaded.
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