Saturday, December 25, 2010

How Much More For Hajjis ?

A very revealing fact has been obtained from the Indian government's External Affairs Ministry Office through the RTI (Right to Information) Act. As per this information, the Indian Government has spent a staggering sum of 2,891.77 crore rupeess (28,920,000,000 Rs = US $ 672,558,140) for muslim Hajj pilgrimage in the last 5 years.

The editor-in-general of "Suchana Adhikar Manch" in Patiala, Punjab, Mr. D.C. Gupta and the publishing editor Mr. Kumar Sarin asked the Indian Government's External Affairs department about Hajj subsidy through the RTI Act on July 31, 2010. The External Affairs secretary Mr. Manbir Singh replied in writing that the Central Government has been providing this Hajj subsidy since 1991.

Mr. Manbir revealed that in just the last 5 years, a total of 2,891.77 crore rupees have been spent for 640,792 Muslim Hajj pilgrims. He also mentioned that between the years 2008 and 2009, 121,695 Muslim pilgrims went to Hajj from the country. The Government provided subsidy of 70,238 rupees (US $ 1,634) per person and a total of 864.77 crore rupees (US $ 201,162,791) was spent in just one year.

The ministry has also informed that the Indian Government does not provide any subsidy for pilgrimage for any other religious group.

As per a Hindustan Times news article published on April 10, 2010, it was disclosed that the Central Govt. spent 367 crore rupees (US $ 85,348,837) on 2006, 390 crore (US $ 90,697,675) on 2007 and 826 crore (US $ 192,093,023) on 2008 as subsidy for the Hajj pilgrimage.

4 comments:

  1. I think we should not call our beloved country a secular country.
    I thought the secular means all religious have equal rights. By reading this article its sound the India and its congress policy is only for certain group to please them and for the vote-bank. This is going on from the Independence era and the present ruling party made it worse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Secularism is a word which have different meanings in different perspectives, I believe. In the west I think, secularism means secularism and here in India, I think secularism means anti hinduism.

    ReplyDelete
  3. One of the biggest tragedies of humankind is, the alliance of two opposite ideologies,communism and Islamism.

    Hopefully BJP will do well in Bengal Assembly Election 2011

    ReplyDelete