Zakat Center India (ZCI) is on a mission to eliminate poverty and help the poor and needy with its livelihood, education, ration, and pension projects.
Established in 2022, the centre plans to expand its Zakat collection activities in 20 cities from the existing 10 cities, and towns all over India in the current financial year.
ZCI chairman S Ameenul Hasan, in a press conference in February, said that ZCI collected Rs 2 crores last year and it’s expected to collect about Rs 20 crores this year.
Money collected through Zakat is used on consumptive expenditure and productive expenditure like livelihood generation programmes while the Centre spends it on livelihood projects, skill development, and educational programmes.
The organization collected Zakat from Indian Muslims only in ZCI’s Indian Bank accounts and did not accept foreign Zakat donations.
The centre has supported several Muslims in setting up their livelihood by setting up a small business for them and sponsoring the education of children whose parents can’t afford it.
About 70 percent of the funds are spent on providing ration to the poor while the rest are used for education provision and other facilities for weaker Muslim sections of the society.
Citizens who belong to the Muslim community have been appealed to donate their zakat to the centre by calculating on the ‘zakat calculator’ available on their website.
ZCI secretary Abdul Jabbar Siddiqui in his exclusive interview with The Siasat Daily, 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.
“Millete e Islamia has laid the foundation of this center to eradicate poverty among the Muslim population in the country which is comparatively slow when compared to poverty eradication in other religious sections of the society,” said the secretary.
ZCI also aims at sensitizing Muslims on zakat rules and assures all-around development for its beneficiaries.
A few of the many activities uptaken by ZCI include a grocery store set up for needy Muslim women along with sponsoring her children’s education while another youngster was given a tool store set up to kick start his career.
“Over 800 families have been involved and bought at the verge of development while over 60 youngsters have been allocated with higher education in 2021-2022,” said Abdul Jabbar.
“Also, 119 families have been given pensions in the last financial year,” he added.
Zakat
Zakat is an Islamic financial term. As one of the pillars of the faith, it requires all Muslims to donate a portion of their wealth to charity.
Muslims must meet a certain threshold before they can qualify for zakat. The amount is 2.5 percent or 1/40 of an individual’s total savings and wealth constitutes zakat.
Zakat falls due when three conditions converge for a person and his wealth
- One is a Muslim.
- One’s zakatable wealth rises to a minimum threshold (nisab).
- A lunar year (hawl) passes while one’s zakatable wealth sustains the minimum threshold
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