NEW DELHI: The sea route for Haj may be revived from 2019 as the government has floated global tender seeking applications from shipping firms in this regard. The sea route option —which will be cheaper than the air route — will be available only from Mumbai, Union Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said on Monday. “We have issued a global tender. We have asked for applications from shipping companies. We are trying to make the sea route operational from 2019. It will only be from Mumbai,” the minister said.
Saudi Arabia has already given its nod to India’s plan to revive the option of sea travel to Jeddah, over two decades after the practice was stopped. Naqvi added that the secretary and joint secretary from the Ministry will soon visit Saudi Arabia to discuss issues related to the travel of Haj pilgrims by sea.
Haj travel by sea was discontinued in 1995 as MV Akbari, the ship which used to ferry the pilgrims, aged and became unfit for use. The idea to revive the sea route was mooted by the Minority Affairs Ministry last year to offset the effect of the subsequent withdrawal of subsidy.
Naqvi said the journey via the sea route would take three or four days. Naqvi said for the first time after Independence, a record number of Muslims from India would go to Haj this year without any subsidy.
While the Haj quota of many countries was reduced by Saudi Arabian authorities, the government has “succeeded in getting India’s Haj quota increased for the second consecutive year and now, for the first time since Independence, a record 1,75,025 pilgrims from India will go to Haj 2018”, Naqvi said.
This year, a total of 1,28,702 pilgrims, about 47 percent of them women, will travel through the Haj Committee of India. The rest will go through private tour operators, he said. A total of 1,308 Indian women will, for the first time, perform Haj without the company of a ‘mahram’ or male guardian, Naqvi said.
The government has taken special measures to address the health concerns of the pilgrims. Two 40-bed hospitals in Mecca, one hospital of 15 beds in Medina, 10 branch dispensaries in Mecca, three dispensaries in Medina and one dispensary in the Jeddah Haj Terminal have been constituted, he said.