Provincial Hajj Quota Scheme, Ministry Of Religion: Based On Muslim Population Or Number Of Registrants

JAKARTA - The Director General of Hajj and Umrah at the Indonesian Ministry of Religion (Kemenag) Hilman Latief stated that he would review the scheme for determining the hajj quota for provinces in Indonesia.

"We will review whether it is based on the proportion of the Muslim population, or based on the number of registrants," Hilman said in his statement in Jakarta, Thursday, March 6, quoted by Antara.

This was said by Hilman in response to a request from the Governor of Aceh regarding the addition of quotas for pilgrims for the Aceh Province, which was conveyed by the Head of the Islamic Sharia Service, Zahrol Fajri.

Zahrol submitted a request from the governor of Aceh to increase the quota of pilgrims for Aceh, considering that the population of Aceh has reached 5.5 million based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

"With 5.5 million Acehnese population, we hope that with the formula so far, which is only four thousand people per year, the hajj quota for Aceh will be adjusted again, hopefully up to 5.5 thousand people," said Zahrol.

Responding to this, Hilman said, based on the Regulation of the Minister of Religion (PMA) Number: 13 of 2021 concerning the Implementation of Regular Hajj, the quota for pilgrims for Hajj candidates is determined based on the proportion of the number of Muslim population between provinces, and/or the proportion of the number of waiting lists for pilgrims between provinces.

"Hopefully in the future we will reformulate the quota of pilgrims per province," said Hilman.

He explained that there are provinces with Muslim populations of up to 48 million, only 550 thousand registrants. Meanwhile, there are provinces with a Muslim population of 40 million, but the Hajj registrants reach 700 thousand.

"This affects the congregation's waiting period to become uneven," said Hilman.