A baggage scanner at the makeshift terminal for Haj pilgrims at Ranchi airport on Monday. (Prashant Mitra)

Ranchi, Oct. 18: A single flight will now connect Ranchi and Jeddah starting tomorrow — a historic occasion for the state’s Haj pilgrims.

For the first time, at 2.50pm tomorrow, a batch of 281 Haj pilgrims from Jharkhand will take off for Jeddah from Ranchi’s Birsa Munda International Airport. No longer will the pilgrims have to make a trip to Calcutta to catch a flight to Saudi Arabia.

All 2,728 Haj pilgrims from across the state will land at Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz International Airport courtesy Saudi Arabia’s Nas Airways. The initiative to start the direct flights, 16 each way, was taken by Union food processing minister Subodh Kant Sahay. The Nas Airways Boeing 757 aircraft will land in Ranchi at 11.50am to pick up the first 281 lucky pilgrims, with Sahay flagging off the flight.

“Pilgrims will leave in batches between October 19 and November 3. They will come back between December 19 and December 30,” said Mukhtar Ahmed of the Jharkhand State Haj Committee.

Pilgrims from across the state have already started arriving in the capital, where they are being accommodated at the Haj House in Kadru. Buses have been organised to ferry them to Birsa Munda airport, where a makeshift terminal will facilitate security checks and immigration formalities. Adequate seating arrangements have also been made at the temporary terminal for pilgrims awaiting their flight.

“A direct flight to Saudi Arabia has lessened our worries. Now, we can concentrate on our prayers,” said Shams Tabrej Ansari (45), a pilgrim from Bokaro, echoing the sentiments of many others around him, all of whom appeared happy at not having to make the journey to Calcutta. Ansari added that they would be praying for peace in India and progress of Jharkhand.

For the last two years, the pilgrims had been flying to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at Calcutta from Ranchi to take the connecting flight to Jeddah. Before that, they would take trains to Howrah and then proceed to the airport.

According to the schedule prepared by the Haj Committee, pilgrims will travel by road to Mecca from Jeddah and stay there for three days. From Mecca, they will proceed to Medina where they will spend eight days.

The committee has also arranged food and boarding for pilgrims during their stay in Mecca and Medina, while pilgrims will have to pay Rs 16,000 for the return airfare. The total cost per head would work out to a little over Rs 1 lakh.