Minister Of Religion Instructs His Staff Not To Leave Homecoming For Hajj Preparation

Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas/SPECIAL DOC

JAKARTA - Minister of Religion Yaqut Cholil Qoumas has instructed his staff at the Ministry of Religion not to leave homecoming to prepare for the departure of the pilgrims for 1443 Hijriah/2022 AD.

"Our technical preparations are and continue to be made. So I instruct the ranks not to leave for going home. We must be on standby to prepare for the departure of the hajj," said the Minister of Religion, quoted by Antara, Thursday, April 21.

Yaqut said that currently preparations for the pilgrimage, both domestically and in Saudi, were being finalized. A number of these preparations, including the timeline for organizing the pilgrimage which includes transportation preparation, officer preparation, visa preparation, preparation for training in rituals, insurance preparation, preparation for accommodation services in Saudi Arabia and preparation for vaccination of pilgrims.

For the implementation of this year's hajj, Indonesia gets a quota of 100,051 people. That amount is half of the normal quota. Even though it had to be trimmed, Yaqut said he was grateful that Indonesia was able to send hajj pilgrims again, after two years of delay.

"That's a consequence, we do a cut off. We reduce the congregation which in normal times was 221,000. Now we get 50 percent of that," he said.

According to him, prospective hajj pilgrims who will depart for this year's hajj are those who are included in the 2020 and 2021 departure queue lists, the number of which reaches 221,000 people.

"Therefore, we prioritize the queue list in 2020 and 2021 and reduce it according to the number of quotas," he said.

Later, the names that will depart will be based on the serial number of the prospective congregation. However, the Ministry of Religion will check the age and health of the prospective pilgrims whether they meet the criteria for departure or not.

"There is a queue serial number. There are 1 to 221 thousand. Because we get a quota of half, yes, we take half of it. Of course, from queue 1 to 100 thousand, there are some things they can't go. For example, Saudi Arabia limits the age of 65 Later, the 65 will be replaced," he said.