Ministry Of Religion: Preparation Of 1445 H Hajj Congregation Documents Earlier

Illustration - The process of selecting documents for Hajj candidates from Mataram City, West Nusa Tenggara, which will depart for the Hajj season 1444 Hijri/2023 at the Mataram Ministry of Religion Office. ANTARA/Nirkomala/am.

JAKARTA - Director of Domestic Hajj Services of the Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) Saiful Mujab said the Ministry of Religion would prepare documents for pilgrims 1445 Hijri / 2024 AD early in anticipation of a slowdown in the process of issuing congregational visas.

The government of Saudi Arabia, said Saiful, has implemented biometric recording for pilgrims since this year. The requirements for pilgrims to obtain Hajj visas are carried out through a bio visa application developed by the Government of Saudi Arabia.

"In practice, there are a number of pilgrims who are constrained in the process of biometric recording, while the time is tight. Alhamdulillah, finally all pilgrims can get a Hajj visa after going through hard work and a long struggle," Saiful said as quoted by ANTARA, Thursday, August 31.

As for the 2024 Hajj season, his party will try to anticipate by preparing documents early.

According to him, anticipation needs to be done because biometric recording through a bio visa is likely to be re-imposed by the Government of Saudi Arabia on 1445 Hijri.

"For improving services in document preparation, we also need to uniformize SOPs in canceling Hajj visas," he said.

Head of Sub-Directorate (Kasubdit) of Regular Hajj Documents and Equipment Zainal Ilmi added that the evaluation of document completion, vision and regular Hajj equipment was held to find out the weaknesses or shortcomings in the implementation of the Hajj pilgrimage in 1444 H/2023 AD, particularly related to documents, visualization and regular Hajj equipment.

"We identified a number of issues that arose and formulated corrective steps for the implementation of the upcoming pilgrimage," he said.