Haj subsidy scrapped long back is used to compare with Chandrayaan 3 budget.
Claim
Chandrayaan 3 Budget – 615 Crore. Haj subsidy annual budget – 685 Crores. What do we need?
Rating
Explanation
ISRO recently launched Chandrayaan 3 successfully. Social media users mocked Adi Purush movie by drawing a comparison between the budget of the movie and Chandrayaan 3. The tweet mentioned the estimated budget of Chandrayaan 3 as 615 crores with the approximate budget of Adi Purush. In response to this viral tweet, another comparison is being drawn and is viral now. This tweet compares the budget of Chandrayaan 3 and Haj subsidy where Haj subsidy is quoted as 685 crores. Some of the posts with such a claim can be seen here, here and here.
https://twitter.com/asuraa_marrioo/status/1679791473229967360?s=46&t=kIszbQH_arRSG8kPbuGeZw
What is the truth?
When searching for the details about the Haj subsidy we found that it was scrapped long back in 2018. Indian Express article reports that it was an 85-year-old policy mentioning that “The policy to support Muslims in making the mandatory religious pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, can be traced back to 1932, when the British enacted the Port Haj Committees Act.” This subsidy refers to discounted airfares given by the government-owned airlines, Air India.
PIB report dated 17, October 2018 titled “No financial burden on pilgrims even after removal of Haj subsidy – Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi” confirms that the Haj subsidy was scrapped in 2017. The former Union Minister of Minority Affairs mentioned that Haj 2018 was successful as it recorded the highest number of pilgrims after independence that too without subsidy.
The Supreme Court in 2013 directed the Centre to reduce and abolish Haj subsidy within 10 years, reported Economic Times. The government had been gradually reducing the amount of subsidy offered to Haj pilgrims each year and cancelled it after the 2017 pilgrimage. The court also asked the government to invest the amount for education and other measures for social upliftment of Muslims.
We also found the details of year-wise subsidies given to the Haj pilgrims under the government quota. The Ministry of Civil Aviation is found publishing the data on the official website. Haj subsidies given by the government of India from 1994 till 2017 can be seen listed. And the gradual decline in the subsidy provided from 2012 is visible in the list.
In a Central Haj Committee meeting in November 2017, it was decided that the Haj subsidy will be completely phased out in 2018 and funds will be utilised on educational programmes, especially for girl children of the minority community, reported NDTV in January 2018.
However, some of the states including Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh continued providing Haj subsidy after the Central government scrapped it. And central government is providing subsidies for other pilgrimages including Kailash Manasarovar and Jerusalem.
Conclusion
It is found that the Haj subsidy was scrapped long back but still used to compare with the Chandrayaan budget by the right-wing supporters.
