In his article on Haj Management, Mr. Muzaffar Hussain (Organiser, 5 Sept., 1999) suggests abolition of the Haj Committee. I feel that a Haj Committee (properly reorganised by amending the Act) is necessary and useful for the pilgrims, since each individual pilgrim cannot organise his Haj on his own.

The Haj Committee incidentally has never been financed by the Government. Not one penny of the Governmnent goes to the Haj Committee.

The subsidy on Haj Charter fare goes to the carrier -in most cases to Air India. Incidentally, the Haj Charter Subsidy has increased during the last 3 years because the Charter fare charged by the carrier and agreed to by the Government and the Haj Committee exceeds the normal return fare while it used to be about 2/3 in the past. The reduction of the Charter fare and the abolition of the subsidy should be simultaneously undertaken.

It is not this year that I have asked for the progressive abolition of the subsidy. Ever since I entered public life 20 years ago, I have been raising the question but the subsidy has become a political need of every successive GovernmenT! I am also against the totally unnecessary and wasteful expenditure of over Rs.2 crores on the so-called Haj Goodwill Delegation which does pilgrims no good, which makes no contribution to the improvement of relations with Saudi Arabia and which only provides another form of patronage for the Government of the day.

The Haj Committee's work should be clearly defined and limited to within the country. At the other end, the C.G. of India in Jeddah with the help of additional staff, local and India-based should take care of all the arrangements. So apart from token presence of Haj Committee during the Haj, all travel by Chairman and the members of the Committee, on one pretext or the other, should be barred by the MEA, which is the controlling authority as the functional Ministry.