- Government of India (GoI) announced Haj Policy after signing an agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Lokmat News Network
Aurangabad: Here is a good for the Haj 2023 pilgrims as the union Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) has made a landmark announcement that under the new Haj Policy, the haj package costs have been reduced by approximately Rs 50,000. Besides, the cost of the form (application) has been waived for the first time.
The information has been announced by MoMA India on its official Twitter account today.
New Haj Policy
The Haj Committee of India (HCoI), a statutory body of the MoMA, has announced the new Haj Policy. MoMA has uploaded it on the official website as well for reference. The policy stated that it aims at providing relief to the elderly, women, disabled and other pilgrims.
Free of cost application
Under the new policy, the aspirant will not have to pay Rs 300 for the application form as it will now be available free of cost.
Female applicant of 45 years for Haj
Another major decision is that any female aspirant of age 45 years and above if she does not have mehram, may apply for the haj. It will be the HCoI’s responsibility to form a group of four such single female aspirants.
Aurangabad listed as embarkation point
The list of 25 embarkation points (EP) includes Aurangabad, Mumbai and Nagpur. In Haj 2022, only Mumbai was the EP from Maharashtra. Hence the aspirant will have a choice of selecting the embarkation points. According to sources, there will be a cost difference in fares of flights boarded directly from Aurangabad EP and other EPs in the state.
Increase in government quota by 10 pc
It may be noted that the GoI has abolished the government quota and merged it with the HCoI quota. Earlier, the government quota of pilgrims was 70 per cent and the private organisers' quota was 30 pc. Now, under the new policy, the
private quota has been reduced to 20 pc and the government quota increased to 80 pc. Hence a ray of hope has emerged amongst the Haj aspirants as a large number of them could get a chance to perform the holy pilgrimage at an affordable cost.
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The new policy retains that a pilgrim can perform haj once in his/her lifetime through HCoI. He will be permitted again only if he goes as a companion of an elderly pilgrim of age 70 years and above. The elders will not be allowed without a companion (Mehram).
RT-PCR test is mandatory. Besides, he/she will have to mention the status of the Covid-19 vaccine.