New Delhi; 26 Feb. 2023:  Established in 2022, Zakat Center India (ZCI) plans to expand its Zakat collection activities in 20 cities and towns all over India from the current financial year. Last year, it operated in 10 cities.

A registered body, ZCI has been promoted by the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH).

The Centre’s primary objective is to make a poverty-free and self-reliant Muslim community. Payment of Zakat, which is 2.5 per cent of the annual savings, has to be paid compulsorily by every Muslim who meets specific economic criteria. The Zakat collections must be spent on various heads, including poverty alleviation programmes.

Addressing media persons today at the JIH headquarters, ZCI chairman S. Ameenul Hasan said that ZCI collected Rs. 2 crores last year, and it’s expected to collect about Rs. 20 crore this year. In response to media questions, he said that the money collected through Zakat would be used on consumptive and productive expenditures like livelihood generation programmes. The ZCI spent the Zakat money on livelihood projects, skill development, and educational programmes.

Mr. Hasan said that the main objective of the ZCI was to use Zakat money to alleviate the economic conditions of Muslims who were among the poorest of the poor in the country. Quoting from various studies, he said that per capita daily consumption of Indian Muslims was Rs. 32.66, indicating the stark poverty among them.

Unlike other organizations involved in the collective system of Zakat collection, he said ZCI spent the money among poor Muslims in the area from where the Zakat was collected.

He clarified that his organization collected Zakat from Indian Muslims only in ZCI’s Indian Bank accounts and did not accept foreign Zakat donations.

He said no scientific data was available about the amount of Zakat paid by Indian Muslims annually. However, he said that the amount of Zakat paid by Muslims in India was quite substantial.

Its secretary Abdul Jabbar Siddiqui said that ZCI, in its first year of establishment, supported more than 1000 needy persons in livelihood projects and more than 500 people in skill development and education.