Mismanagement in arranging Hajj facilities

MANY Hajj-aspirants might not be able to perform Hajj this year for failing to get visas in time and also for unavailability of air tickets for which they often wait to the last moment. Quoting functionaries of Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB), a national daily on Thursday reported that Biman has already incurred a capacity loss of 5,000 passengers since Hajj flight begun on August 4. They mainly blamed private Hajj operators for failing to confirm visas and plane tickets ahead of the scheduled flights. The National Flag carrier Biman had to cancel at least 10 Hajj flights so far as the agencies concerned could not send pilgrims. There is mainly coordination problem between airlines, Hajj operators, Ministry of Religious Affairs and Saudi Embassy. The malfunctioning starts this time from the beginning of the Hajj flight.
The Hajj Agencies have reportedly obtained visas for 63,000 pilgrims out of 83,000 applications submitted so far and there is a growing fear that the remaining 20,000 might not be able to fulfil the requirements to be completed by the second week of September. The private operators usually delay hiring accommodations for the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia to save time in sending pilgrims to save money. What happened this time is that Biman allotted seats to pilgrims in its scheduled flights but Hajj operators failed to prepare pilgrims without booking of accommodation for which Saudi Embassy also delays visa. This is why 10 flights had to be cancelled. Now Biman’s instruction to all Hajj Agencies to confirm visas and tickets 72 hours before the travel to arrange flights accordingly sounds quite sensible.
This year, a total of 101,758 pilgrims are expected to perform Hajj from Bangladesh and 15,000 have been already lifted to Saudi Arabia. Biman is expected to carry half of the passengers and Saudi Airlines will lift the remaining pilgrims from Dhaka to Jeddah.
We have separate religious ministry. Why cannot the ministry serve efficiently in establishing effective coordination and cooperation among various bodies when they always remain busy in sending official Hajj delegation comprising huge number of officials and party men? We don’t know what they really do other than enjoying exertion on public money. We must say they must ensure pilgrims’ safety. We can’t ignore last year’s fatal accidents that killed over two thousand pilgrims. There is no denying that government runs Hajj bureaucratically as the delegation shows where the individual ministers do not count much.
As it appears that most problems that result from lack of coordination and at times forcing pilgrims to miss flights due to some fraudulent practices of the Hajj Agencies. They want to keep the cost at low that create the mismatch. We say they must understand that Hajj-aspirants are paying them at a higher rate. They must not be cheated. There was plenty of time for arranging Hajj flights and yet serious acts of negligence are found in arranging the flights and confirming visas.