India: TN urges centre to allot additional 1,500 Hajj seats

Chennai, Feb 12 (PTI): The Tamil Nadu government Tuesday urged the Centre to allot an additional 1500 Hajj seats to the state's quota in view of the demand.

Chief Minister K Palaniswami wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Centre has allotted 3,534 seats in 2019 for the people of Tamil Nadu to perform Hajj.

"The Tamil Nadu State Hajj Committee has already received 6,379 applications for performing Hajj this year. To overcome this huge gap, I request you to instruct the Ministry of Minority Affairs to allocate 1,500 additional seats over and above the quota allotted to Tamil Nadu," he said.

This would benefit pilgrims intending to perform Hajj from Tamil Nadu, the chief minister added.

Palaniswami recalled that last year too,the Centre had increased Tamil Nadu's quota from 3,542 seats to 3816 on his request.