Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Tuesday informed that he received a phone call from Haj & Umrah Minister of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Dr. Mohammad Saleh bin Taher Benten suggesting not to send Haj pilgrims from India to Haj for this year. Mr Naqvi said that the entire world is facing challenges of the Corona pandemic and Saudi Arabia has also been affected by it.
He said that 2 lakh 13,000 applications had been received for Haj 2020.
The minister said, the process has been started today to immediately refund the full amount of money deposited by the applicants without any deduction. Our correspondent reports, the money will be refunded through online DBT mode into bank accounts of the applicants.
Naqvi said that a total of 2 lakh Indian Muslims had performed Haj in 2019. These pilgrims included 50 per cent women.
A total of 3040 women have performed Haj after the NDA Government ensured Muslim women can perform Haj without male companion in 2018.