File Photo: Celebrations during Ramzan. (AFP)
The Telangana government has allocated Rs 26 crore for celebrations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Making the announcement in Hyderabad on Thursday, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said the money would be spent on organising iftar dinners in mosques, distribution of clothes among the poor and payment of honorarium to imams and muezzins.
He said the government will host 'dawat-e-iftar' on a massive scale at the Nizam College Grounds here on July 8.
Ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran and Indonesia will be invited for the dinner.
Though the chief minister every year organises the iftar party, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government has decided to make it a grand event. He said 4,000-5,000 people are expected to attend the dinner.
Similar dinners will be organised in 100 mosques in Hyderabad and one mosque in each assembly constituency across the state. Food will be arranged for 1,000 people at each mosques.
District collectors, police superintendents, ministers, parliamentarians and state legislators will attend the iftar dinners being organised to promote communal harmony.
KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, said clothes worth Rs.9.75 crore will be distributed among 1.95 lakh poor Muslim families to enable them to celebrate Eid.
Another Rs.4 crore will be spent to arrange food for these families.
The chief minister also announced that the government will pay Rs.1,000 per month to each imam and muezzin of 5,000 mosques in the state.
The government will also arrange food in orphanages at a cost of Rs.25 lakh on July 8.
A committee headed by Deputy Inspector General of Police A K Khan has been constituted to supervise arrangements for the main event in Hyderabad. Deputy Chief Minister Mahmood Ali will review the arrangements.
Muslims constitute 12.43 per cent of Telangana's population of 3.51 crore. They comprise about 30 per cent of the 90 lakh population of Hyderabad.